


Who We Are | MaoMaoctober

by Shanghai_OhMy



Category: Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, Drabble Collection, Everything else is G or T, Fluff, Gen, Love Confessions, M/M, MaoMaoctober, October Prompt Challenge, One Shot Collection, Smut but only in one chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-11-10 15:43:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 39,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shanghai_OhMy/pseuds/Shanghai_OhMy
Summary: 31 totally individual, self-contained short fics based off of @mukicoon's #maomaoctober prompts. I wrote one every day for a full month. Because they are self-contained, each individual chapter can be read without reading any others, so don't worry about actually committing to 39k words! Chapter 1 includes a readers' guide in the author notes with some suggested chapters and brief summaries to help you find what might interest you. Enjoy!You can see all of the prompts and more information here: https://twitter.com/Mukicoon/status/1178704554361147392?s=19





	1. Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Since this has ended up being such a massive collection of writing, I thought I'd make a little reader's guide here. Each chapter in this work is a separate, independent fic, so you can just jump to any prompt that sounds interesting! There's a mix of fluff, angst, and cool action/adventure in here, so read whatever grabs your attention! Some of my personal favorite chapters:  
  
2 - Armor (mild angst; Mao Mao gets hurt and Badgerclops is upset)  
5 - Preparation (character study; Badgerclops helps prepare the town for a bad storm)  
6 - Teacher (fluff, somewhat romantic; Badgerclops gives Mao Mao a massage and reminds him to self-evaluate more often)  
7 - Adventure (long, plot; Mao Mao takes Adorabat with him on a business trip to an exciting foreign city)  
8 - Melancholy (hurt/comfort, romantic; Mao Mao gets stuck in his past and Badgerclops soothes him out of it)  
9 - Fiery (action, character study; Badgerclops tears himself apart to damage a monster)  
12 - Madness (comedy; The sweetypies go full apocalypse mode)  
14 - Insomnia (character study, hurt/comfort; Mao Mao can't sleep. Badgerclops can't either.)  
15 - Shadow (angst; Badgerclops's criminal past still causes him trouble.)  
17 - Smile (fluff, romance; Told from Ol' Blue's perspective over a series of therapy sessions, Mao Mao's relationship with Badgerclops blooms.)  
20 - Game (long, sorta fluff, sorta character study; Mao Mao, Adorabat, and Snugglemagne play some D&D with Badgerclops as their DM)  
22 - Pirates (comedy, character study; Mao Mao and the gang crash the sky pirates' potluck feast, which provokes Orangusnake into verbally disassembling them.)  
23 - Slave (This the one NSFW chapter; Mao Mao has a very adult dream about Badgerclops and tries to hide the evidence from him.)  
25 - Vengeance (character study, kinda angst; Mao Mao wants revenge on his father for abusing him. Badgerclops helps him through those feelings.)  
29 - Gift (fluff; It's Badgerclops's birthday, and Mao Mao gives him a gift for the first time.)  
31 - Mao Mao (fluff, romance; The culmination of this month of fics. Mao Mao confesses his love to Badgerclops.)

It was a cold, misty Spring morning when he set out. He drew his cloak around himself, searching for warmth. This was it. Everything he knew would be to his back from now on.

This was the day he left home for good.

He carried a few days' food and money with him. Nothing else, save for his beloved sword. Certainly he could win himself some accommodations quick enough. A few monsters slain, a few towns saved, and he'd be set for life. That would never be enough for him, of course; he was going to become a legend. It wasn't about a cushy place to stay, or the adoration of some backwater town. He wanted songs to be written about him. He wanted statues erected in his honor. He wanted parents to tell their kids "you'll have to eat your vegetables if you want to grow up big and strong like Mao Mao!"

He shivered against the damp, cold air. The sun would come up and burn off the fog soon enough. He'd be able to see the horizon then. 

His stomach churned, though he tried to ignore it. He wasn't hungry. He knew it was just emotions. But he wasn't scared. A hero is never scared! Surely it was excitement. Here he was, striking out on the open road! The hero, Mao Mao! In the fog... cold... and alone...

He felt sick. Why did heroes always set out on their journeys on days like this? This weather sucked! He felt anger like a stone in his gut, replacing the other feelings. Stupid fog! Can't see where you're going at all!!

He stumbled on a root and screamed with rage, hacking it to bits with his katana. And then he stood there, breathing heavily in the mist, white-knuckle grip on his sword.

It had been less than an hour since he'd left home.

He sat on the ground, feeling like he might cry at any moment. Why was he out here? What was the point of it? He wasn't a hero. This whole journey was completely pathetic!

He tugged a clump of grass from the ground and let it scatter through the air. What did it mean to be a hero, anyway? He thought of the hundreds of moral codes and guidelines his father had drilled into them, the massive "familial code" tome in his traveling pack. It all rang hollow in the fog. What did he want out of this escape?

_ Escape... _

The question had answered itself. Mao Mao wasn't striking out to make his legend; he was running away. He was leaving the people who had made him feel worthless his entire life. And while he wanted desperately to impress them, to return a decorated hero whose skills no one could deny, a deeper part wished they'd forget about him entirely. He wanted to be free. He wanted to create his own legacy. He would be Mao Mao, the greatest of a great line of heroes. He wanted to tower over all of them. He wanted to be the only one in his family that anyone remembered.

He felt a sudden warmth on his shoulder and looked up to find that the sun had pushed through the morning fog. He could see mountains in the distance now, and the road stretched in front of him.

He smiled and rose to his feet. He had a long walk ahead of him.


	2. Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day two! My laptop actually kicked the bucket last night, so I'm doing all of these on my phone from now on, which isn't ideal.

"Helloooo, Mao Mao? Mao, can you hear me? Mao Mao!"

Mao Mao opened his eyes, but his vision was blurry. What the hell happened?

"Hey, there he is! Back with the living."

His head felt like it had split in half. He tried to sit up and gasped as he felt a searing pain flood down his whole right side. Sweat beaded on his brow.

Badgerclops winced. "Hey hey hey, easy there Mao. You took a real bad hit, dude. Just chill for a second, okay?"

Mao Mao groaned.

"There we go, all set." Badgerclops readied himself behind Mao Mao. "I'm gonna lift you now, okay man? Just stay still."

Mao Mao felt himself leaving the ground. Badgerclops had constructed some sort of wheeled gurney around his body. His head seemed to keep on rising, even after the rest of his body had stopped.

He passed out again.

===

When he next woke up, he was in a hospital bed. Looking down, Mao Mao saw that much of his torso was obscured by bandages. The splitting pain was gone from his head. An IV drip slithered into his arm. Pain killers, Mao Mao guessed. That would explain why he didn't feel like he was exploding anymore.

Careful not to turn his head too much, Mao Mao looked over to his right. Badgerclops sat on a stool at his bedside. He waved a little hello with his metal arm.

"Hey Mao," he said quietly. It was like he was afraid that if his voice was too loud, Mao Mao might go under again.

Mao Mao tried to speak, but realized his throat felt like sandpaper. He desperately needed some water. He turned his head around, looking for a glass.

Badgerclops understood. "Here, I got it." He grabbed the plastic cup of water from the table next to Mao Mao's bed and held it near his mouth. "You want to hold it?"

Mao Mao nodded, taking the cup with his left hand. He took small sips, careful not to upset anything too much. He had been hurt like this before. It was best to do everything cautiously, no matter how innocuous it seemed. He inhaled and exhaled in an exploratory way, getting a sense of his lungs. He certainly had some broken ribs which had now been set, so he didn't want to move much air for fear of disturbing them.

He placed the cup back down on the table. "Thank you, Badgerclops." His voice was quiet. Weak.

"It's no problem."

A silence.

"What… happened?" Mao Mao finally asked.

Badgerclops sighed. "We were fighting a pretty nasty monster, lots of bone plates and stuff. It was basically like a rock that could hit us. We were all beating on it for a while, and then you thought you had an opening for an attack at its side. You jumped in, but it whipped its tail around and caught you on your right side, then slammed you into the ground. That was what knocked you out."

"Sounds… bad."

Badgerclops nodded. "It was, man! We could barely scratch it."

Badgerclops sat silently for a moment, scratching his nose.

"Hey, Mao Mao?" He said, looking at the floor.

"Yeah?"

"I got really, really worried when you wouldn't wake up out there." Badgerclops's voice shook a little. "I thought I might have lost you."

Mao Mao felt a familiar pang of guilt. This wasn't the first time he'd scared Badgerclops like that. But what choice did he have? He couldn't stop fighting, not while there were people to help.

"Why can't you wear armor?" Badgerclops asked.

Mao Mao was surprised by the question. "Armor?"

"Yeah man, armor! Like the monster we fought today! It was basically invincible. If you're gonna keep throwing yourself at monsters, you should at least wear some armor, right?"

"I have armor, Badgerclops. I don't need any more."

Badgerclops made a frustrated noise. "You have kneepads, Mao! That's it! Those aren't  _ real _ protection. Besides, I'm pretty sure you just wear them so you can do knee slides."

Mao Mao strategically ignored that last comment. "They're all the protection a true warrior needs, Badgerclops. The most legendary heroes parry every strike, dancing among the blows like a leaf on the wind. Armor just slows you down when you have TRUE speed and skill."

"No offense Mao Mao, but you get hit _all the time_. It doesn't make any sense not to protect yourself!" Badgerclops seemed to be taking this very personally.

"Armor is for cowards who can't win fights on their own."

"Armor is for people who want to take a hit and not die!"

"Armor lets you hide from the truth of your complete lack of skills!"

"Why do you want to get hurt?!" Badgerclops demanded, a tear in his eye. He quickly realized how aggressive he had been and calmed his posture down. 

Mao Mao stared down at his battered body. He couldn't answer that.

Badgerclops sat back on the stool, turning away from Mao Mao a bit. "Just… why can't you wear some real armor?"

Mao Mao struggled to find his voice. "My father," he managed, grasping for words.

Badgerclops leaned in, interested.

"My father, the legendary Shin Mao… wears an enormous suit of magical armor. He never takes it off. He can use it to fly, he's almost impossible to hit… When I was younger I thought it was cool, but now…" He clutched the hospital blanket in his fist. "My father doesn't know anything! He always said I wasn't good enough with my parries, I wasn't fast enough, I would get hit. But all he ever did was get hit! He stood there letting everything that came his way crash right into him, because his ~oh so legendary~ magic armor would make it bounce right off!" Anxious fear bubbled up in Mao Mao's stomach as he talked ill about his father, like he might be punished somehow, but he pressed on. "He's just a pompous jerk who can't do anything on his own!"

Badgerclops considered. "So you won't wear armor because you want to prove that you're better than him?"

Mao Mao nodded.

"Maybe your dad is afraid?"

Mao Mao turned to look at him. "Afraid of what?"

"His family losing him? Maybe he wears armor because he has a wife and seven kids and he doesn't want them to deal with what happens if he dies."

Mao Mao scoffed. "You haven't met my father."

Badgerclops took his uninjured hand. Mao Mao almost pulled away, but decided to remain in Badgerclops's gentle grip. "I know, Mao Mao. The point I'm trying to make is… I don't want to see you get hurt like this anymore, Mao. And I want you to understand what it's like to be me in this situation. To see the person you…" he stumbled for a moment. "Uh, your friend get slammed into the ground and then stop moving… I thought you were dead, Mao."

Mao Mao knew he was right. But it wasn't that simple. He just… couldn't. 

Mao Mao was about to respond when he felt a wave of dizziness overtake him. The lights suddenly seemed too bright. He shut his eyes. "Badgerclops, I'm sorry, I think I need to sleep."

"Okay, Mao."

Before he could drift off, Mao Mao needed to be sure of one thing. "Are you going to stay?"

Badgerclops gently patted his leg. "I'll be right here until you wake up again, Mao."

The last thing he heard as he slipped back into sleep was the stool creaking under Badgerclops's weight as he settled in for a long night.


	3. Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orangusnake: *leaves Mao Mao alone for like five minutes*  
Mao Mao: Time to have an emotional breakdown
> 
> It's tough to write one of these every day but I am going to keep doing my best!

"You won't get away with this!" Mao Mao yelled, twisting and struggling in his bonds. He had been captured, tied up, and thrown in a cell by the sky pirates. It was pretty embarrassing, really; they were so unimaginably incompetent, yet they'd somehow gotten the drop on him. 

Orangusnake sat on a chair just outside the cell, looking in at him triumphantly. He grinned as Mao Mao struggled. "Oh really? And who's going to stop us?"

"My friends!!" Mao Mao yelled back, wiggling harder. The ropes were way too sturdy to bust out of, and the knots showed no sign of loosening.

Orangusnake threw his head back and laughed. "What 'friends'? You've been abandoned by everyone, Mao Mao!"

"Rrrrgh!!" Mao Mao growled. It wasn't true. Badgerclops would come. Any minute now he and Adorabat would come crashing into the room.

"Really? That's your response? I mean come on, cat got your tongue?"

Mao Mao said nothing. Orangusnake didn't deserve the dignity of a reply. 

"Face it Mao Mao, nobody is coming to save you. You think Badgerclops is going to work that hard? Just for you?"

"Of course he is!" Mao Mao snapped back, losing his composure for a moment.

Orangusnake grinned. "Then why hasn't he shown up yet?" He pulled out a walkie-talkie and pressed the button, holding it up so Mao Mao could hear. "Ratarang, any sign of approaching enemies?"

There was a moment of static, and then: "Not a thing, boss! All clear up here, see?"

Satisfied, he put the device away. "Nobody's coming, Mao Mao."

Mao Mao laughed. “They’re obviously just planning their attack.” There was a nervous edge to his voice.

“Sheesh, I thought I was going to have some fun with you, but this is just pathetic.” Orangusnake stood up to leave. “Your friends aren’t coming, Mao Mao. They don’t care about you. Their lives will be much easier without you around.” He reached the door. “Stop pretending they’re coming. It’s weird and embarrassing.”

Oragusnake shut the door, leaving Mao Mao alone in the darkness.

_ Of course they’re coming! _ Mao Mao thought.  _ Badgerclops would never let me stay locked up like this! _ He imagined Badgerclops and Adorabat hanging out back at HQ, playing video games together.  _ Their lives would be so much easier without me around…  _

He shook his head.  _ No. No! They need you! They could never get by without you! _ He pictured Badgerclops running from a monster’s fiery breath, shrieking.  _ They’ll come get me because they can’t live without me! I’m important! I’m the sheriff! _ He reveled in a fantasy of the entire city coming after him, Badgerclops and Adorabat leading a stampede of vicious sweetypies towards his cell. The whole town would come to save their sheriff!

...But why hadn’t they already done it? Why wasn’t anyone coming to save him?

His breathing grew slightly panicked. Bao Bao had left him. Tanya had left him. Why wouldn’t Badgerclops and Adorabat? Everyone abandoned him eventually! Maybe they really weren’t coming, and he would be at the mercy of the sky pirates. After all, why come save someone like him? He was useless. Nothing but a burden. All he did was make their lives harder.

“You’re nothing.” His father’s voice echoed in his head. “Training you would be a waste of my time.”

_ That’s right, _ he thought,  _ I’m worthless. There’s no point in saving me. Nobody cares that I’m gone. _ He wanted to cry, but he knew that nothing would come out even if he tried. So he closed his eyes and rocked slightly on the floor of the cage, uneven breaths leaving his lungs unfulfilled.

Time passed.

His ears perked up as he heard some commotion from beyond the door. It sounded distant at first, but it was rapidly getting closer. Hope ignited in his chest.

A moment later, Badgerclops burst through the door, holding Orangusnake by the throat with his metal hand. “Thank you,” he said, dropping Orangusnake to the floor, “that will be all.” He stepped on Orangusnake.

“MAO MAO!!” Adorabat screamed, flying through the bars of the cage. “Are you hurt?! We were so worried! Badgerclops and I were searching for hours!”

Mao Mao smiled, a warm tingling overtaking his entire body. “How about you untie me, Adorabat?” He asked, wiggling the ropes. 

She saluted. “Right away, sheriff Mao Mao!” 

A blue glow illuminated the room as Badgerclops charged a beam. Mao Mao looked up just in time to see him blast the locking mechanism off of the cage, melting it completely. Without saying a word he grabbed Mao Mao off the floor and lifted him into a powerful hug. The newly-untied ropes fell away from Mao Mao’s body as Badgerclops raised him up. 

He could hear Badgerclops’s ragged breathing.  _ Is he… crying? _ There was no sniffling though, and Mao Mao didn’t feel any tears on his fur. Before he could ask, Badgerclops held him out at arm’s length and began to laugh. “You’re okay! I mean, you ARE okay, right?” He looked Mao Mao over for injuries. “We got here as fast as we could. I was really worried, man!”

Mao Mao beamed. “You really did a number on Orangusnake there.” He wanted to tell them how glad he was to see them. He wanted to tell them about the way he’d panicked, the fear he’d felt when he thought they wouldn’t come save him, so that they’d tell him they’d never let that happen. But most of all, he wanted to stay in the company of his friends. And as Badgerclops and Adorabat told him the story of the rescue, every moment he spent with them felt radiant with love. They were his friends. They weren’t going anywhere. They wanted him, and he wanted them.

He was loved.


	4. Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adorabat realizes how lucky she is to have met the two greatest heroes in the entire world.

Adorabat stared at Mao Mao as he worked through his routine, committing every motion to memory as best she could. He did this every day before his training exercises in the dojo. It was like some kind of weird, slow dance that also had stretches in it. Sometimes he did it with his sword, but today he was empty-handed.

She had tried to follow along before, but it was too complicated to keep up with. Mao Mao moved totally smoothly, holding and moving between the poses without a hitch. But when she tried to do it too, she kept stumbling and losing her balance. So today she watched him as close as possible, trying to understand how he held himself so steady.

_ Arms forward, foot out behind, left arm over and back, tuck into a ball and spring up… _

It was too much to keep up with, even just watching. She angrily slapped the ground with a wing. It wasn't fair! She was trying too!

Mao Mao finished his exercise and turned to look at her. "You get any of that?"

Adorabat shook her head. "I can't! I tried really hard, but there's too many steps! And I still don't understand how you don't fall over!" She felt close to tears. It wasn't fair!

Mao Mao patted her head between her ears. "That's okay Adorabat, it's a very advanced martial arts technique that takes years to master. There's a reason I didn't ask you to follow along."

She crossed her wings. "But I wanna do it too! I wanna be a hero like you, Mao Mao!" She looked up at him, eyes shining with tears. "How did you get so cool?"

Mao Mao laughed and sat next to her. He placed his arm around her back. “I trained for years, Adorabat! I’ve spent thousands of hours honing my mind and body to make myself into the perfect hero.”

“So if I work really really hard, I can be as good as you?”

Mao Mao nodded. “All it takes is practice, and the will to be the best.”

“There’s something Mao Mao isn’t telling you,” Badgerclops called out as he burst through the front door. 

“Huh?” Adorabat asked. Mao Mao looked annoyed.

Badgerclops held a tall glass in each hand. He passed one to Mao Mao and the other to Adorabat. She took a sip. It was some kind of mango smoothie, and it was delicious!

“What Mao isn’t telling you is…” He paused dramatically. “...you’re already a hero, Adorabat!”

Her eyes widened. “I  _ am?! _ ”

Badgerclops grinned. “Yeah dude! You help us fight bad guys and protect the city! You’re totally a hero!”

Adorabat couldn’t believe it.  _ I’m a hero like Mao Mao and Badgerclops? _ She could barely contain her excitement. “Wow!!”

Mao Mao put up a finger. “Now, what Badgerclops means is-”

“-that you fight the scary things that all the other sweetypies would run away from. You try your best to protect them and that’s what being a hero is all about!”

“But you still have to train to get better!”

“And then I’ll be strong like Badgerclops and fast like you?!”

Badgerclops stuck his tongue out at Mao Mao. “Ha ha, I’m the strong one.”

“So what!” Mao Mao crossed his arms.

Adorabat flew up and patted Mao Mao on the head, then perched on Badgerclops’s shoulder. “I’m gonna be a really great hero one day! I know it! Because I have the two greatest heroes in the world to teach me!”

Mao Mao blushed, turning away and coughing to cover it up. Badgerclops gave her a hug, then stepped over and swept Mao Mao up into it too. Mao Mao struggled to escape, which made Badgerclops laugh. Adorabat loved every second of it. Not just this moment; she loved fighting monsters together; she loved learning to be a hero; and most of all, she loved her weird new family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually do these maoctober drabbles on the bus ride to/from my office, but my commute was very different today! So this one's a bit short and weird. Like Mao Mao!


	5. Preparation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A storm is approaching Pure Heart Valley.

Badgerclops hammered another piece of wood across the bakery window. An armful of additional boards sat on the ground beside him. He clenched a few nails between his teeth.

The sky was a flat grey, nothing angry yet. But Badgerclops knew what was coming. A weather lab on the other side of the mountain where their HQ stood had predicted a massive hurricane. It would arrive in less than a day now. They had only had a couple of days to prepare, and they were still finishing up.

Badgerclops straightened up and turned from the window to survey his work. Mao Mao and Adorabat had taken charge of the evacuation efforts, so most of the prep down here had been done by Badgerclops, with the help of a small team of the handier sweetypies. Badgerclops had spent nearly a full day running calculations on where the flood plane would rise to, what objects would likely become dangerous wind-borne debris, and which neighborhoods would need additional fortification. Under his direction, the ground team had created a safe flood channel using sandbags and boarded up all of the larger windows which didn’t already have shutters. 

Most of the buildings here on the ground-level tier of the city had been secured by now. Farmer Bun was lugging a sandbag in front of another door for extra protection. Badgerclops knew he should have been pleased with their progress, but all he could think about was all the ways in which their work wasn’t enough. Hundreds of sweetypies would still come back to broken windows, ruined furniture, and hours of work undoing the very same preparations they had struggled to complete two days earlier. He grimaced. It still felt like they weren’t doing enough.

He watched Farmer Bun heft the sandbag on top of the small wall of others in front of the door. The bag was nearly as big as he was. Badgerclops knew he couldn’t push these sweetypies any more than he already had. He also knew that even if he did, their preparations still wouldn’t be perfect. It was impossible to do this cleanly. It was impossible to prevent every loss.

He hated work like that.

When he and Mao Mao had first found out about the storm, they’d gone straight to Snugglemagne for more information. Was there an existing storm plan? How had the sweetypies dealt with extreme weather in the past? Any historical data for flood levels, ideally correlated with time of year?

Snugglemagne had simply shaken his head. He explained that the barrier had kept all of the nasty weather at bay; even when there were dreadful storms outside, Pure Heart Valley only experienced moderate rain. There was just no context for a storm like this.

Badgerclops adjusted a few of the sandbags. His eye told him that statistically the change would have zero impact on the overall success of the plan. He didn’t care.

A buzzing came from his tool sash. He pulled out his phone. “Yeah Mao?”

“Badgerclops, how are things going up there?”

“We’re just about done, I guess.”

“What do you mean you guess?”

“Even if we do everything we can, we still can’t save everything.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment. “Sometimes you can’t, Badgerclops.”

“No, Mao Mao! If I was just-”

“Badgerclops!” Mao Mao said firmly, cutting him off. “Listen to me. You can’t… you can’t win perfectly every time. Even when you’re a hero.” He paused for a moment, as if considering something. “Two weeks after I met Bao Bao, we came across a tiny mountain village with a big dragon problem. Something had shifted the dragons’ migratory pattern, and now this town was right in the middle of their path. Bao Bao and I got everyone out of the village, and we spent days fighting fires and pushing the dragons back. But in the end, half of the town was destroyed. We did all that we could, but some people still lost everything. I should have saved more, but…” Badgerclops heard him sigh into the receiver. “Sometimes the best we can do is reduce the damage, Badgerclops. No matter how much we want to win. Sometimes the best outcome is just the smallest loss.”

Badgerclops looked around at his small team of sweetypies. They were all congratulating each other on a job well done.

“You did your best, Badgerclops. Be proud of what you  _ could _ do.”

Badgerclops found himself sniffling slightly. He wasn’t sure why. “...Thanks, Mao.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, can you and the ground crew do me one more favor? The king says he forgot his favorite blanket back in the castle, and he absolutely refuses to sleep without it. He’s throwing a fit and if he doesn’t stop soon I’m going to kill him just to get some quiet.”

Badgerclops heard Adorabat gasp on the other end of the phone. He wiped his eye and smiled. “Yeah man, I’ll get right on it. No regicide while I’m gone, okay?”

He set off towards the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very happy with this one! I think it fulfills what I set out to do with this collection very nicely.
> 
> I also released a full-length fic about Badgerclops and Mao Mao's wedding today! So check that out too. It's cute.


	6. Teacher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao learns how important it is to take a break.

Mao Mao took a deep breath, locked his eyes on the target dummy in front of him and sprinted towards it. He ran up its front and sprung off the painted-on face, leaping towards a second target. He spun in the air, sword outstretched, and-

“Alright, that’s it,” Badgerclops said, storming into the dojo. He grabbed Mao Mao out of the air and set him down on the floor. “You’re coming with me, Mao.”

Mao Mao was furious about Badgerclops’s interruption. He was already on edge; the past few weeks had seen an unprecedented uptick in monster activity. They were constantly fighting. And now he couldn’t even train in peace? “What’s your problem?!” he yelled at Badgerclops.

Badgerclops seemed pissed. “My PROBLEM, Mao Mao, is that you won’t take a damn break!”

Mao Mao rolled his eyes. “How exactly is that YOUR problem?”

“Take your pick: because you’re my friend and I care about you, or because you’re my co-worker and if you fall apart, I have to pick up the slack.”

“Fall apart? FALL APART?! I am NOT falling apart!” Did Badgerclops think he was  _ weak?! _

“Oh yeah?” Badgerclops asked, stepping closer. “Watch this.” He grabbed Mao Mao by the shoulders, spun him around, and then pressed his thumb into the base of Mao Mao’s right shoulder blade and turned it slightly.

Mao Mao’s mouth dropped open, tongue falling limply out to the side. Sparks played at the edges of his vision. His knees went weak, and for a moment he thought he might fall. A strange, aching tingle radiated out from the point of contact, all the way to his extremities. 

It felt incredible. And painful.

With one move, Badgerclops had released a knot of muscles clenched so tightly that Mao Mao could feel them when he swung. It was like he had a brand new shoulder. How bad was the rest of his body? Surely this was impacting his agility and flexibility!

His katana clattered to the floor, rousing him from his massage-induced stupor. He straightened up, embarrassed, and pulled away as he cleared his throat. “Ahem. Well, um, you may… have a point.”

Badgerclops nodded, satisfied, and picked up the blade from the floor. “C’mon, man. Take a break with me. I’ll fix you up, okay?”

Mao Mao nodded and followed him into their headquarters, suddenly acutely aware of every little hitch in his body.

A few minutes later, he was lying face-down on the sheriff’s department desk. Badgerclops had cleared everything off of it and laid down a few sheets, creating an impromptu massage table. There was a sheet on top of him too, folded back just far enough to leave his upper body exposed but still cover his tail stump. Badgerclops returned with a couple of scented candles and placed them a safe distance from the sheets, lighting them.

“Okay, now just take it easy, okay man? I can’t help you with this if you don’t relax.”

“Why not?” Mao Mao said defensively. He didn’t really feel relaxed, laying naked in the middle of their office with only a sheet between his butt and the air. He shifted uncomfortably on the desk and felt a burning sensation near the base of his spine. 

Badgerclops sighed. “You are an unbelievable pain in the ass, Mao Mao.” He came around to Mao Mao’s front so he could see him. “Your muscles are all fucked up because you haven’t given them a chance to rest. I can fix it, but if you keep holding them tight while I’m trying to work, it’ll just be a waste of both of our time.”

Mao Mao harrumphed. It made sense, but he was still angry. What the hell was he doing, lying here sniffing candles when there had been so much to do recently? He should be training! Getting ready for the next fight!

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt Badgerclops’s warm hand on his head. He moved it down along Mao Mao’s spine, gently but firmly pressing him into the table. Mao Mao felt several muscle groups roll under his touch, barely loosening their stranglehold on his vertebrae.

Badgerclops winced, sucking in air through his teeth as he finished the stroke. “Jeez, Mao. Your back feels like a bowstring.”

Mao Mao laughed weakly. Despite his reservations, that first touch had thrust him much closer to relaxation. It felt like Badgerclops had spread him thin across the table with one push. His breaths were longer than they had been. A scent tickled at his nose. He inhaled and was greeted with the pleasant smell of burning firewood. Badgerclops must have picked out those candles specifically for him; he’d always thought there was something pleasant about their evening campfires, back when they were out on the road.

“Are you comfortable?” Badgerclops asked, placing his hands on Mao Mao’s shoulders. Mao Mao nodded yes, surprising himself.

“Okay. You’re doing great, Mao.” Badgerclops spread his fingers and pushed with the heels of his palms, moving his arms together down along the edges of Mao Mao’s back. Mao Mao felt himself relax further. Even though he was acutely aware of the pain and tension in his muscles, he felt good lying there.

After a few more long, relaxing opening strokes, Badgerclops began to work the muscles more directly. He placed the heels of his hands by the base of Mao Mao’s right shoulder blade and began to move the entire muscle group there, gently stretching it and releasing some of the tension. He switched between mass movements like that and smaller kneading motions from his fingertip. There was a lot of pressing in somewhere with his thumb and then gently swirling it around, unlocking the muscles in that area. The first few times he winced; there was so much tension balled up in his back that undoing any part of it gave way to pain. But after the initial anguish, it felt so good that Mao Mao almost drooled, forgetting to swallow.

“I can’t believe you let it get this bad…” Badgerclops said, seemingly more to himself than to Mao Mao.

“I… didn’t know it was happening,” Mao Mao said, mumbling slightly. He was afraid that if he spoke too loudly, he’d lose his relaxation. He didn’t want to waste Badgerclops’s hard work.

“You need to pay more attention to yourself, Mao.” Badgerclops was releasing Mao Mao’s neck now, carefully prodding it with his fingers.

Several half-formed thoughts fought for Mao Mao’s attention. He opened his mouth to ask the only question that seemed reasonable. “How do I… do that?” He felt like an idiot for having to ask, but… obviously he needed the advice. Everything that he had learned about heroism up to this point had told him that the more time he spent fighting and training, the better he would be. The last couple of weeks should have left him stronger than he had ever been. But here he was, feeling utterly battered and broken as Badgerclops tenderly put his body back together. It just seemed so ridiculous; pay attention to himself? He was the least of his worries! There were monsters and criminals and sky pirates to deal with!

“You need to do more stuff like this,” Badgerclops replied, thumbs attacking Mao Mao’s spine. “ _ Before _ you get hurt, I mean. I don’t care how much training you missed because you were out fighting monsters. When we come home, you gotta sit down for a moment and just… think about how you feel.” He deftly massaged out another knot. “Like, ‘am I stressed out right now? Do I feel tired?’ Check in with yourself, you know?”

Mao Mao nodded slowly. There was a time when Badgerclops would check in on him like that after any particularly rough days. He hadn’t understood back then. He’d thought it was misplaced pity and angrily waved him off until he finally gave up and stopped. Now he understood: Badgerclops had been trying to teach him to think about his own needs.

“And don’t go taking on more work when you’re already overwhelmed!” Badgerclops scolded. “If you’re tired or stressed, you come find me and I’ll help you work it out. Got it?” He stuck an elbow into Mao Mao’s back and drove it into a cluster of muscles. Mao Mao gasped in pain, then collapsed onto the table as relief washed over him. “Thanks,” he said, both for the lesson and the massage.

“You’re welcome, Mao Mao. Now lemme do your arms.”

Mao Mao acquiesced, melting into the pleasing sensation of Badgerclops’s deft hands playing across his bicep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Badgerclops definitely wanted to be a masseur before he fell into being a criminal and then a hero. It's a way of materially helping people that's totally in line with his character.


	7. Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adorabat joins Mao Mao on a business trip to Red River City, her first time outside of Pure Heart Valley.

Adorabat stared wide-eyed at the scenery below her. The aerocycle rushed over red rock bluffs, mesas, and ravines. She had never seen anything like this before in her entire life.

She was going with Mao Mao on a business trip to a far-away city. It was the first time she'd ever left Pure Heart Valley. It was her first real adventure! She wished Badgerclops was here too, though. He had to stay home to keep the city safe while the two of them traveled.

Adorabat gawked at a passing spire of rock, shooting up out of the ground and rising even higher than they were. "Mao Mao, did you see?! That rock was HUGE!!"

Mao Mao laughed. "Welcome to Red River City, Adorabat. Pretty different from home, huh?"

Adorabat turned her head as far as her neck would let her, trying to take in every detail. "This is SOOOOOO COOL!!!" But something had her confused. "But Mao Mao… where's the river? And the city?"

Mao Mao tightened his grip on the aerocycle's controls. "I thought you might ask. Hold on tight, Adorabat." He swerved the aerocycle into a crevice in the ground, and suddenly they were enveloped in craggy cliffs of striated rock. Mao Mao laughed and Adorabat screamed as they tore through the chasm, narrowly avoiding the walls. They took a series of sharp turns, swerved under a land bridge, and then…

Adorabat's jaw dropped. They had emerged into an enormous valley nestled among the bluffs. On the far end was a massive waterfall, spewing from the rock face above and tumbling into the basin. It glittered golden-red in the hot sun. Around its banks laid a lush ribbon of greenery, and around them a bustling city. It was absolutely incredible.

"You see Adorabat, the river picks up silt and iron from the rocky caverns it runs through before emerging here and depositing them," Mao Mao explained. "It turns the water red and leaves behind fertile soil for growing."

It was unbelievable. The strip of green, red, and gold was brilliant among the desert rocks and sand. And the city around it was amazing too! The buildings were made from a strange material she'd never seen before, with flat roofs that people could stand on. There were brightly colored glass tiles everywhere, in the streets and on the buildings and even on the cliffs themselves. The people even wore totally different clothes! Adorabat gawked at it all as they touched down in an open parking lot.

Mao Mao was saying something to the attendant, but Adorabat didn't pay any attention to what; she was too busy looking at their outfit. It looked like a single sheet of flowy cloth, but it had sleeves somehow too. It even came up to cover their head, held in place by a thin belt decorated with glass tiles. It was so pretty!! 

The attendant noticed her looking and smiled. They looked different from all of the sweetypies Adorabat knew. They were a lot taller, but not as tall as Badgerclops. They were less brightly colored than most sweetypies, though a rim of bright yellow scales highlighted their eyes. Adorabat figured they were a snake person, but she wasn't certain; the only snake she knew was Orangusnake, and he didn't really have legs or arms. 

"Is this your first time visiting Red River City?" They asked, crouching to be closer to her level. 

"Mhm!" Adorabat nodded. "Your clothes are really pretty!"

They laughed. "Thank you! I bet they don't have anything like this where you're from."

Adorabat shook her head.

"You see Adorabat," Mao Mao chimed in, "it's much hotter here than back home. Most clothes would get too warm. So the fashion here is to wear light fabrics."

"And most people cover their heads too," the attendant added, "to keep the sun off. You get hot faster with your head exposed!"

"Oh!" She pulled out a baseball cap from the backpack Badgerclops had packed her and put it on.

Mao Mao smiled and patted her. The attendant straightened up. "All set?"

"Yep! Eight hours, all paid. Enjoy your visit!"

They began their walk towards the downtown area. Mao Mao paused and turned to her on a street corner. "We'll walk there through the city and then come back along the river, okay?"

"That sounds fun!" She wanted to see as much as she could.

Mao Mao took her wing and led her across the street. She noticed a lot of people carrying briefcases. Way more than back home. 

"There's a lot of trade in this city," Mao Mao said, following her gaze. "People come from all over the world to do business here."

It wasn't long before they reached their destination, a large government building adorned with glass sculptures and dozens of gently-flapping cloths. It was beautiful. 

"We're here to register the valley as a sovereign nation," Mao Mao explained. "Because it's been off the map for so long, it's technically unincorporated. This is an important step for Pure Heart Valley."

Adorabat stared at him. That was a LOT of big words.

Mao Mao noticed her confusion and shook his head at himself. He explained: "Basically, we have to show the people here proof that Pure Heart Valley exists. Once we do, we’ll be an official sheriff’s department, and then we’ll be allowed to deal with any outsiders who cause problems.”

“Oh… So we’ve been beating people up illegally?”

Mao Mao covered her mouth with a finger. “SHHHHH! Don’t… say it like that! Just stick with me and stay quiet, okay?”

She saluted and grabbed his hand again as they walked into the building. It was instantly cooler inside. She wiped her forehead with the back of her free hand, realizing how hot it had been out there. It was weird being inside a building like this in another city. Adorabat recognized a lot of the same services - a front desk with a receptionist, a big line of people waiting by a bunch of booths, and lots of offices - but the design was totally different. Tubes of glass poked from the ceiling, somehow piping in sunlight from the outside and illuminating the rooms. In place of the polished wood floors back home, there were rugs laid over large, smooth tiles. Actually, there was barely any wood at all.

Mao Mao lead her up a staircase and into an office crammed with filing cabinets. She looked around at all of the papers strewn around. It seemed way messier than the other offices they’d passed. There were maps and charts everywhere, and lots of weird looking scrolls.

“Just a moment,” said a voice. Whoever they were here to meet was rummaging around behind the desk. “Got it!” He straightened up and extended a white-feathered wing across the desk. “Mr. Mao?”

Adorabat was amazed. This guy was definitely as tall as Badgerclops, for sure! Adorabat thought he might be an egret, but she wasn’t certain. His whole body was covered in white feathers, a puff of longer ones jutting from the back of his head. His legs accounted for most of his height. A comically frazzled expression sat on his face.

Mao Mao shook his wing. “Please, call me Mao Mao.”

The egret laughed. “Now now, no need for full names! That’s much too formal.”

Mao Mao squinted for a moment. “Mao Mao isn’t…” He sighed. “Forget it, Mao is fine. Thank you for taking on our case, Mr. Etson.” 

The egret gestured to a pair of chairs, taking a seat behind the desk himself. Mao Mao dropped into one chair as Adorabat perched on the back of the other.

“It’s no trouble at all, Mao!” From her position atop the chair, Adorabat could see several empty, coffee-stained mugs on the desk. “It’s not every day a legendary lost civilization reappears in the middle of nowhere!”

Mao Mao chuckled. “Well, my life is pretty legendary. Here.” He reached into his sash and pulled out a thick binder of documents. “This is the town chartar, along with records of every citizen going back three hundred years and a copy of the original constitution of the monarchy. Apparently there was a fire before that, and a lot was lost. I keep saying this town needs a fire department, but nobody listens.” He muttered that last part to himself.

Mr. Etson took the binder and leafed through it, head darting from page to map to calendar and back again. Apparently satisfied, he nodded and pointed at a map on the table. “According to our records, these were the previous boundaries of your jurisdiction. After the civilization disappeared, they fell under  _ this _ district...” He pointed out a different map. “...which eventually became unincorporated land about one hundred and eighty years ago.”

Mao Mao nodded. “And the town charter lines up?”

Mr. Etson nodded in return. “Indeed it does. So, I need you to fill out…” he searched around the surface of the desk for a moment, then found the paper he needed. “...this form, and I’ll have my assistant copy what we need from your binder.” He opened the door and nodded to someone outside, handing off the book.

As Mao Mao hunched over the desk and began writing, Adorabat spoke up. “Um, excuse me Mr. Etson? What’s this building made out of.”

He looked at her brightly. “Oh, I suppose you wouldn’t have these in the Pure Heart Valley! We build everything we can out of mud bricks.”

Adorabat gasped. “MUD?! But it’s so clean!”

Mr. Etson laughed. “The bricks go through a special drying process that keeps them sturdy and clean. Did you notice how much cooler it was in here than outside?”

Adorabat nodded.

“That’s because of the bricks, and some special building techniques. Mud bricks absorb the sun during the hot day, then radiate it at night when it gets cold. Plus we use special windows to make sure that the air moves through our buildings quickly, so it doesn’t get too hot.”

“Why don’t you just use air conditioning?”

“When we build like this, we don’t need to! It’s hot for most of the year, so we came up with ways to avoid the heat.”

Adorabat realized something. “We have slanted roofs on our houses back home so the snow falls off!”

“Exactly! Pure Heart Valley gets much more rain and snow than we do, so you build with that in mind!”

Adorabat was amazed. Why didn’t they learn about things like that at skewl?

Mao Mao signed the document with a flourish and handed it to Mr. Etson. “There you go, all done.”

The egret looked over the document for a moment. Then he held his wing out again for Mao Mao to shake. “Mr. Mao,” he said, “you’re on the map.”

Mao Mao took his hand, grinning. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Etson. Pay us a visit sometime, alright?”

Mr. Etson nodded. “I’d love to, Mao.”

Someone handed Mao Mao the binder of town documents as they walked out of the office. “All done, Adorabat!” Mao Mao said, patting her on the back. “We’re a city now!’

“Wow!” She paused for a moment. “Um, Mao Mao? I’m hungry.”

Mao Mao glanced up at the wall clock as they left the lobby. It was definitely time to eat. Plus, they had a few hours of parking left...

“How about we check out the market?”

Adorabat couldn’t wait.

===

Happy and full, they strolled along the lush banks of the red river. The sunset made its unusual coloring even more striking. All around them were small patches of farmland, making full use of the fertile soil. Adorabat pointed at each crop and asked what it was. Mao Mao knew some of them. They came across a vendor selling some sort of local fruit from a stand next to a whole grove of trees.

“How about some dessert, Adorabat?”

“Yes please!!”

The vendor smiled, handing them each a fruit. They were rosy pink and egg-shaped, but bigger than a regular egg. “The best way to eat them is to jam a claw into the tip, then pry outward. It should come out in a clean segment.”

Mao Mao tried it with his and peeled out a wedge. He bit into it and his face lit up. “Oh, that’s delicious! Adorabat, try yours!”

She considered for a moment. She didn’t have claws. But what she did have was… Sharp teeth! She drove one into the fruit and pulled the whole thing away from her mouth. The segment popped out, stuck to her tooth. She pulled it off and bit into it. The flavor was really weird, kind of crispy like an apple but much more flavorful. It was good!

Mao Mao thanked the vendor and bought a bag of several more to bring home, then they continued walking as they finished their fruits. It wasn’t long before they were back on the aerocycle, headed for home.

Adorabat yawned. She was sitting on Mao Mao’s lap at the front of the aerocycle, secured in place with a special seatbelt. The sun had set now, and they were cruising over a dark, vague landscape. Adorabat could feel herself slipping into sleep. She mustered up her energy for one last thing.

“Hey Mao Mao?”

“Yes, Adorabat?”

“Thanks for taking me with you. I really love going on adventures with you.”

Mao Mao patted her on the head. “I’m glad you had fun. You can take a nap now if you want. I’ll put you right in bed when we get home.”

She nuzzled into his stomach and was out in an instant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's way longer than normal (more than double my average for these daily drabbles, actually). I just had so much fun with the worldbuilding and stuff that I let it go on for a while. It's different from what I usually write, which is part of the point of this whole mao maoctober exercise. I hope it was as fun to read as it was to write!


	8. Melancholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Mao Mao remembers his old life.

Mao Mao sat on the edge of the dojo floor, legs dangling out over the void. He stared ahead, eyes completely unfocused. It was a somber twilight evening, the kind that washed everything in shades of blue. Each lit window in the valley stood out like a tiny yellow-orange beacon against the dwindling light. They blurred and smeared in his unfocused vision.

He felt hollow.

The door to HQ slid open. He didn’t turn around to see who it was.

“Hey, Mao? Dinner’s ready.”

Mao Mao nodded. It was time to go inside.

He didn’t feel hungry.

“Mao Mao?”

He didn’t move. 

He stared ahead at the city, the trees, and the mountains receding into the inky blue distance. Only the dimmest awareness kept him connected to his body, staying upright and seated. His mind was somewhere else.

_ "Not right now, Mew Mew… I’m busy training your sisters." _

He jolted as something touched him, suddenly returning to his senses. It was cold out here, but he hadn’t even noticed. His ears picked up the sound of crickets and frogs which moments ago had been completely absent. His eyes sharpened again, the mass of blue pine trees lining the mountain turning from a blob to a series of well-defined shapes.

Badgerclops had sat down behind him, legs spread around his so that Mao Mao’s back was up against his stomach. He gently wrapped his arms around Mao Mao’s body and placed his head on top of Mao Mao’s.

Mao Mao didn’t resist. Badgerclops was warm.

“Are you thinking about them again?” Badgerclops asked.

“Yes.” Mao Mao continued to stare straight ahead. He was glad that Badgerclops had chosen this position; he didn’t have to look at him while they talked. He could feel his senses beginning to dull again.

Badgerclops hugged him tighter in response. It was nice. “You don’t have to be okay,” he said.

Mao Mao blinked, the world coming into focus again. “What?”

“I said you don’t have to be okay, Mao. Y’know, just… the whole hero thing. Everyone’s got problems, man.”

“Oh.”

Badgerclops drummed his claws on the floor. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

Mao Mao didn’t know. He didn’t really feel any way about anything right now.

Badgerclops interpreted his silence as a no. “It’s alright man,” he said, “let’s just sit.” Badgerclops gently ran his hand through Mao Mao’s chest fur, bringing it up and down again in a soft, rhythmic pattern. He began to hum quietly, swaying just a little bit.

Mao Mao stayed there, pressed against his body, feeling Badgerclops’s stomach expand against his back with each breath as he hummed. He slowly closed his eyes, the feeling of swaying in Badgerclops’s warm arms taking over. He drifted. The song was sweet and low, and it wrapped his ears in its lilting melody. The hand against his chest felt so good. He didn’t want it to stop. He gently hugged Badgerclops’s arm.

Badgerclops kept humming. He repeated the song a few more times. Mao Mao held on through all of it. 

Then Badgerclops stopped. “Feeling better?”

Mao Mao nodded, coming to his senses and wiping his eyes. He didn’t even realize he’d started crying. He straightened up, releasing Badgerclops’s arm. Badgerclops let Mao Mao out of his embrace, scooting back slightly to give him some space.

Things felt different now. His hearing and vision stayed sharp instead of slipping into nothingness again. It seemed like he was actually back in his body. Mao Mao turned towards Badgerclops. The light was gone from the sky now, leaving him silhouetted against the lights of their house. 

He took a slightly shaky breath and let it out with a sigh. “I started to think about the way my father treated me again…” He stared at his hands. “Sometimes when I remember it, I get caught up in it all over again. Like no matter how hard I try to get away, he’s always there. And I just… go numb.”

Badgerclops placed a hand on his cheek, gently stroking it with his thumb. “It’s okay, Mao. Stuff like that takes time… even for someone as strong as you.” He pulled Mao Mao into a hug. “I’m here for you dude, alright? Let me help you when it gets like this.”

Mao Mao squeezed him back, feeling for a moment like he might start to cry all over again. He wiped at his face a few more times and nodded.

Badgerclops stood up and offered Mao Mao his hand. Mao Mao took it, allowing Badgerclops to pull him up to his feet. As they turned towards the house, Badgerclops put his hand on Mao Mao’s shoulder. They took a few steps, but then Mao Mao stopped.

“Badgerclops?”

“Yeah?”

“What were you humming?”

“Oh, that?” Badgerclops blushed a little. “It’s an old lullaby my dad used to sing to me.”

Mao Mao felt a little embarrassed that he had liked it so much. “Well… Thank you.” He knew it was awkward, but he didn’t know what else to say. He was genuinely, deeply thankful for Badgerclops’s help.

“Any time, man. Come on, let’s get you fed.” They walked into the warmth of the house, shutting the door on the night behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried very hard to carry the mood through the writing in this one. I wanted things to ooze that empty sadness without outright stating "mao mao sad". Melancholy is a tough mood to carry for more than a few hundred words though! So I thought a lot about sentence structure and word choice & kept it short.


	9. Fiery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Badgerclops tears himself apart in an effort to keep a dangerous monster at bay.

The monster bore down on them, its long, knifelike legs cutting gashes into the ground as it skittered closer. It felt like the fight had been going on for hours. They’d managed to push it back away from the city and into the barren land near the cliffs, but the monster showed no signs of giving up. It roared with its reptilian head, a crest of fins rising menacingly from its neck.

“Ugh, we get it!” Badgerclops yelled, firing a beam directly into its open mouth. “You’re big and you suck! Go home!”

The shot crackled into its body and then discharged harmlessly through its arms and into the ground. 

“UUUGHH!” Badgerclops groaned, throwing his head back. “Mao, this thing won’t quit!”

“Let’s see how it handles THIS!” Mao Mao leapt up into the air, a confident grin on his face as he angled himself for a clean slice across the monster’s throat. But the thing moved its head to intercept, grabbing Mao Mao’s katana in its teeth and flinging it, along with Mao Mao, far from the fight.

“MAO MAO!” Adorabat screamed. She turned back to the monster, terrified.

“Stay back, Adorabat!” Badgerclops said, pushing her behind him. He calculated his options. The monster could absorb electricity, presumably because the legs it had jammed into the earth were grounding it. Its scales didn’t look particularly tough except on its limbs, but Mao Mao hadn’t been able to get a good hit in because it was too fast. Badgerclops concluded that he needed to catch it by surprise. Something corrosive could work… 

His eyes widened. A plan came together in his head. A tremendously stupid plan. His heart was pounding. This was a grade A bad idea. But what else could he do? 

“Adorabat, smoke bomb!”

She flew up into the air and tossed one at the monster’s head. It hissed, swinging its head blindly in the resulting cloud.

“Go find Mao Mao!”

“But but but, Badgerclops! What about you?”

He sprinted towards the monster’s side while it was blinded. “I’ve got a plan! Just go!”

Adorabat flew off in the direction Mao Mao had gone, though she didn’t look happy about it.

_ It’s better that she’s not around for this anyway, _ Badgerclops thought.  _ She’d pick up some bad habits.  _ He stared up at the monster. He had to be fast; there would be no chance of hitting that thing after it regained its senses from the smoke bomb.

He rocketed onto its back, wrapping his robotic arm around its neck to hold himself steady. The monster roared, flailing in an attempt to fling him off. Badgerclops held on tight. He stared at his own shoulder. This was the moment; no time for doubts.

There was always a spare screwdriver secured to his shoulder plate. He kept it for emergency repairs. His lips twisted into a smirk as he popped it out; this was NOT a repair.

He jammed the screwdriver into a small hole in his arm and started twisting. Screw after screw fell out of their metal housings, tumbling to the ground below. Sweat gleamed on his brow. This had better fucking work.

With the panel no longer secured, he wrenched his claws underneath it and tore it off, exposing the internals of his arm. Hundreds of hydraulic lines and wires, plus a massive PCB board were laid bare. But he was going after something else: a huge brick wrapped in blue plastic.

_ If I survive this, _ he thought,  _ I’m adding an acid spray to this thing. _

Gritting his teeth, he ripped the battery from its housing. Instantly his robot arm went limp. A nauseating wave of pain shot through him as each individual nerve receptor ran out of power and shut down. Suddenly his prosthetic was nothing more than a dead weight. 

The monster shook violently, nearly throwing him off now that his arm wasn’t helping. Badgerclops roared back, unsure of what else to do. He was filled with fury, sick to death of this monster and this fight. 

He set the battery down on the monster’s back, holding it between his legs. It was almost as big as a cinderblock, and almost as heavy too. Using the screwdriver like a chisel, he cracked open the safety casing and tossed it off to the side. The battery was now fully exposed. This was the moment. 

He really wished he’d come up with a better plan.

Badgerclops jammed the screwdriver into the battery, smashing a hole in the cell. Extremely corrosive battery acid began to pour out, audibly hissing as it made contact with the monster’s scaly flesh. He disconnected his arm at the shoulder and grabbed the battery, running along the monster’s back to spread the acid as much as possible. Even in a battery this size, there wasn’t a lot, so every drop counted. He knew it wouldn’t kill the monster; it wouldn’t even do much damage. But it would hurt like hell, and that might be enough to get a real shot in.

The monster screamed in pain, dropping to the ground. Badgerclops knew what it would do next; it would roll over in the dust and dirt, trying to wipe the acid from its back. He jumped away as it turned on its side. His landing wasn’t graceful. The monster ran its enormous, knifelike arms against its back to no avail. It wailed again, rolling over just like Badgerclops had predicted.

All four of its limbs were up in the air and out of the ground. Its stomach pointed towards the sky. Badgerclops made a desperate dash towards its side, thrusting a claw out in front of him. This was absolutely insane. He was unarmed!  _ Heheh, unarmed.  _ Even if he tore a gash from this thing’s head to its tail, it probably wouldn’t be any deeper than a papercut! But if it hurt enough, maybe the monster would finally run away and they’d be safe again.

He jammed his claw into the softest spot he could find and wrenched it towards himself. A wound opened up. For a moment, he was hopeful. This might actually work.

Then its other arm slammed into him, flinging him back against the nearby cliff. His ears rang. Sparks danced across his vision. Something was bleeding for sure. The monster righted itself and dashed towards him, furious. It jabbed an arm into the cliff, barely missing him as he rolled out of the way. His discarded arm hung from its neck like a scarf. The monster’s roar was deafening.

Badgerclops scrabbled at the cliff for a rock to throw. No more plans, no more options. This was it. He stared up at the monster’s open mouth.

“Hey, ugly! Get away from my friend!”

“Mao Mao?!” Hope ignited in his chest.

“LUNARRRR-”

He saw Mao Mao silhouetted in the air above the monster.

“SLAAAAAAASH!”

A line of brilliant light bisected the creature. It began to turn to ash at the point of contact, black flecks peeling off into the breeze. The process continued, slowly taking over the monster’s entire body until nothing was left but grit in the air. Mao Mao sheathed his sword. A fire burned in his eyes.

“Badgerclops!” Adorabat shouted. “Your arm!”

Mao Mao rushed past her, grabbing Badgerclops in a hug. “Badgerclops!! I was so worried, I… I’m so glad you’re alright.”

Badgerclops slumped against the stone cliff, barely hugging Mao Mao back. He felt like ten tons of lead. “Thanks, Mao…”

“That lunar slash was INCREDIBLE!!” Adorabat said, flying over. “Why don’t you do that all the time?”

Mao Mao looked at his gloves. “It requires a certain emotional state. I need… conviction. Every cell in my body has to be set on the same goal.”

Badgerclops smiled weakly. “Like saving someone you love?”

“Yes Badgerclops, that’s exactly-” Mao Mao realized what he’d said and turned red all the way up to his ears. Badgerclops giggled as Mao Mao turned away and started speedwalking back towards the city. “Well, you’re safe now, blah blah blah, see you back at HQ!”

“At least come back and get me with the aerocycle!” Badgerclops called after him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, Badgerclops is a badass and we do not talk about it enough.
> 
> Just a good-old-fashioned, rough-and-tumble monster fight for this fic. Mao Mao needs some fiery passion to unleash a Lunar Slash - either that "fuck you dad" energy or that "I love my boyfriend" energy.


	10. History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scene from Mao Mao's past; we learn how he got his Hero's Code book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for effects of abuse (no actual abuse depicted)

The tome stared up at him from the table, thick and heavy and forbidding. The Mao clan Hero's Code had been passed down for centuries, bound and re-bound, copied and amended, accruing the knowledge of generations of heroes. All of the learning his ancestors had done was contained within this book. It was the perfect guide to being a hero.

Mao Mao had never even touched it.

Every day he went to the family library to look. He desperately wanted to pore over its yellowed pages, drinking up every scrap of knowledge it contained. But he was forbidden from touching it.

_ Don't you dare lay a finger on it,  _ said a voice in his head.  _ You'll ruin it, just like everything else. _

He knew it was right.

His sisters all had their own copies, of course, with plenty of blank pages for them to add their own notes. But Mao Mao had nothing. Father had kept the original - well, the closest thing to an original they had - to himself. It sat on a reference table in the library. Every day Mao Mao came in here, climbed up on a chair, and stared at whatever page it was flipped open to. He'd memorize every inch of that page, then run back to his room and copy it. Nobody knew he was doing it. He'd almost certainly be shamed if they found out. A disappointment, stealing family secrets he had no right to know.

He looked down at the page. His father would come in here often, late at night, and flip to some strange entry. Today the book was open to a Hero's Conduct page. Mao Mao’s eyes widened; those were his favorites, though he rarely got to see them because Shin Mao had them all memorized. These were the definitive rules for how a hero should act! Excitement growing in his chest, he read:

_ A hero cannot see the world for what it is until he sees himself for who he is. To this end we meditate, introspect, and dedicate ourselves to the truth. But this alone is not enough; we must also consider our impact upon the world. What is our legacy? How are we sculpted from history? How, in turn, do we sculpt it?  _

_ To be a hero is to understand these questions and their answers. Our actions exist in context. What is heroic to some may be villainous to others. A true hero does what is equitable and righteous as a matter of history. A hero must consider every perspective, not just his own. We are the sum of our impact upon others. _

Mao Mao absorbed each word, committing the page to memory. Then he noticed a small note at the bottom. It looked like father’s handwriting.

_ Is a hero’s perspective not correct by definition? Heroes do not make mistakes. Accepting the perspective of another is simply doubting yourself. _

Something knotted up inside of him. He stared at the note, fists clenched. Tears appeared in his eyes, but he wiped them away angrily. Father lectured all day about the code, and _this_ was how he interpreted it? _He doesn’t consider his impact on anyone!_ _How can he say he’s a HERO?! _Mao Mao wanted to tear the page out, to scream and cry, to scrawl his name over his father’s worthless note. He stood on top of the chair, silently shivering, tears dripping down his face.

_ Look at you, reacting like this. Questioning him. He’s right to treat you the way he does. It’s only fair. _

Mao Mao gasped in a breath, wiping at his face. He stared down at the note again.

_ Heroes do not make mistakes. _

Something cold and hard took hold of him. Although his breathing was still unsteady, he climbed down from the chair and walked purposefully back to his room. He shut the door behind him. With robotic motions, he pulled his pitiful copy of the code from its hiding place and set it out on his desk.

_ A hero cannot see the world… _ he began, transcribing the words from memory.  _ …until he sees himself for who he is.  _ Mao Mao knew who he was. Weak. Worthless. A disgrace.

_ How are we sculpted from history? How do we, in turn, sculpt it? _ A bitter smile formed on his face as he began to cry again. He didn't sculpt this history. He didn't own it. He copied and stole it, tore pages from a history he didn't deserve to have. He was a stain on his family's legacy, a mistake to be locked away, a selfish, weak failure with no claim on the past and no hope for the future.

A hot tear dripped from his nose onto the page as he continued to write.

_ ...We are the sum of our impact upon others. _ He was a waste. A net negative in the world.

His hand began to tremble as he started to transcribe his father's note. He did not hesitate or think to exclude it for even a moment.

_ Is a hero’s perspective not correct by definition?  _ Shin Mao was a hero. A greater hero than Mao Mao could ever hope to be. 

Each stroke of the pen felt like he was carving the words into his own flesh, wet ink like blood pooling on the page. Etch it in. Don’t let the lesson be forgotten.

_ Heroes do not make mistakes.  _ His father was right. Mao Mao deserved to be ignored. He was pathetic. A sniveling thief. All he did was make mistakes.

_ Accepting the perspective of another is simply doubting yourself. _

Mao Mao sobbed as he finished the last line. The page was disgusting, a mess of blotted ink and stains from his tears. It was as sick and wrong and awful as he was. As this whole project was. He opened his pathetic hero’s code and bound the page at the very front of the book. Always there, before anything else.

_ Serves you right. Never forget it. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With so many Maos, it doesn't make sense for there to be just the one hero's code (at least, not if Mao Mao is the one who has it). In the show, that book represents the entire toxic legacy that has been forced on Mao Mao, so I wanted to... make it even more toxic and traumatic lmao.


	11. Badge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Badgerclops keeps his badge in pristine condition, while Mao Mao's languishes in a drawer.

Badgerclops sat on the couch, carefully polishing his badge. It was a pointless piece of metal, of course. Everyone already knew who they were! There was no reason for any of them to have a badge. Yet Snugglemagne had insisted, and within a day of their being instated as sheriffs, some guards had appeared at their door with a felt-lined box containing two sheriff's badges and one deputy badge. They'd gleamed enticingly in the light.

Mao Mao had stowed his away in the top drawer of their office desk. "It's a meaningless symbol," he'd said, "I don't need some badge; everyone knows I'm a hero just by looking at me!"

Badgerclops suspected that he just didn't want it to ruin his whole "look."

Adorabat had worn hers proudly, but after an incident in which she arrested Chubbum for cutting her in line at skewl, Mao Mao had demanded that she turn in her badge. So now it stayed in the drawer next to his.

But Badgerclops still kept his with him. It was always in his sash pocket, beautifully polished and shining whenever it saw the light.

Mao Mao walked in from the dojo, a sweat-soaked towel around his neck. He was headed to the fridge for a drink, but paused when he saw Badgerclops on the couch fiddling with something. "What's that?"

Badgerclops set it down on the couch out of Mao Mao's view. "It's nothing, just something I was working on. How was training?"

Mao Mao ignored the question. "You were working on your badge?"

There was something skeptical and dismissive in his tone, though it wasn't malicious. Badgerclops covered the badge with his robotic hand. "Yeah, I was just… polishing it."

Mao Mao laughed, pulling a pitcher from the fridge and pouring himself a tall glass of ice water. "You shouldn't waste your time on petty symbols of authority, Badgerclops. You're better than that. A true hero's power comes from within."

Badgerclops sighed, fingering the cool metal of the badge. "Yeah, I know."

"Training was good," Mao Mao said, dropping onto the couch next to him. "Adorabat's really getting the hang of following up her dodges."

"Don't work her too hard, okay Mao? She's like, ten."

Mao Mao laughed. "Relax, worrywart. I've got it under control. Besides, with the amount of energy she has, I’m the one who’s getting a workout."

Badgerclops laughed.

Mao Mao shifted in his seat. "Uh, Badgerclops? Why are you hiding your badge from me?"

"Huh?" Badgerclops realized that he'd kept it completely obscured by his hand since the moment Mao Mao joined him on the couch. “Oh, haha, this old thing?” He picked it up nonchalantly.

Mao Mao narrowed his eyes at him. “Why are you acting so… weird?”

For a moment, Badgerclops thought about shrugging him off. After all, Mao Mao wasn’t exactly emotionally intelligent. But at the same time he yearned for Mao Mao to understand him, to see his struggles and support him when he needed it. He sighed.

“Mao, I… care a lot about the badge.” He turned it over in his hands as he talked, allowing Mao Mao to see it. “It’s just… You’ve always been a hero, dude. Your  _ whole family _ is heroes! You don’t need a piece of metal to tell you that you’re important.” He paused, the pristinely polished surface of the badge facing up. He looked at his own wobbly, golden reflection in its surface. “But I’m not… good like you, Mao. You always try to do the right thing. You’re a hero! But I’m… I was a criminal, Mao. I hurt people. Like, all the time.” He rubbed the thumb of his robot hand across the shining metal. “I even  _ look _ like a villain, with the metal arm and the eyepatch and stuff.” He flipped the badge over again, reading his own name engraved on the back. “When I got this, I felt like I was finally doing something  _ right _ . I’m a hero to these people! They actually think I’m… good.” He sighed. “I know it’s just a dumb piece of metal, and I know it’s stupid, but I care about it.” He closed his hand around the badge, engulfing it completely.

Badgerclops looked up at Mao Mao for the first time since he’d started talking. Mao Mao’s eyes looked… unfocused? For a moment, Badgerclops was furious.  _ Seriously?! Did he just zone out while I was talking AGAIN? Ugh, he always does this! _

But then Mao Mao reached out, placing his gloved hand on top of Badgerclops’s fist. He gently spread Badgerclops’s fingers. The pristine badge glinted as it was exposed once again to the light.

“It’s not stupid,” Mao Mao said, carefully pinning it to Badgerclops’s sash. “You  _ are _ a hero, Badgerclops. You deserve to feel like one.”

Mao Mao finished adjusting the badge, then sat back again. “You earned this badge. Wear it proudly, sheriff.” He smiled.

Badgerclops felt a few tears well up in his eye. He wiped them away and gave Mao Mao a big hug. “Thanks, Mao.”

Mao Mao patted him on the back stiffly. “Don’t mention it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This touches on a couple of the ideas that I've been exploring in a much longer fic about Badgerclops. I think there are actually a ton of interesting parallels to be drawn between how he feels about himself as a hero vs. how Mao Mao feels about himself as a hero. They're both coming at the same problem from two totally different angles. It's so much fun when a show gives you good dramatic foils.


	12. Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Kevin:** My name is Kevin, with a B, and I'm afraid of bugs.  
**Mao Mao:** Stop, stop, stop. Where's the B?  
**Kevin, sweating:** There's a bee?

Mao Mao was stretched out on the grass outside their headquarters, drenching himself in the afternoon sun. It felt incredible against his black fur, which caught the heat in its dense darkness. This was heroic relaxation at its finest.

A strange smell tickled at his nose. Smoke, maybe?  _ Badgerclops must be cooking, _ he thought, turning over and keeping his eyes shut. He didn’t want to get up just for that. Still, the smell was hard to ignore.

“Hey Mao,” Badgerclops said as he stepped out of the door, “do you know wh-OH GOD WHAT IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?!”

Mao Mao’s eyes snapped open. In an instant he was on his feet. He looked to where Badgerclops was pointing, and saw utter chaos in the town below. Plumes of smoke billowed from various neighborhoods. Badgerclops produced a pair of binoculars from his tool sash, which Mao Mao immediately grabbed. There were sweetypies running through the streets, screaming. Several cars were overturned. Some areas of the city were completely empty, abandoned like ghost towns. 

“Nice job listening for the monster alarm, Badgerclops!” Mao Mao yelled as he ran for the pole down to the garage. “Adorabat, come on!”

“It didn’t go off, dude!” Badgerclops yelled back, chasing after him. He grabbed a sheet of dot matrix printer paper from a basket as he passed.

The three of them scrambled onto the aerocycle. “What’s going on?!” Adorabat asked.

“I don’t know!” Mao Mao shouted back, kicking the bike into gear. 

As they sped through the waterfall and down towards town, Badgerclops looked at the printout he’d grabbed. “Yeah dude, the last alarm was yesterday morning! Whatever this is, it’s not a monster!”

“Or,” Adorabat said grimly, “it’s a monster so horrible and terrifying that nobody could stop screaming long enough to sound the alarm.”

“Let’s… hope it isn’t that,” Mao Mao said, setting down the aerocycle on the wide avenue that ran between the town’s east and west gates. There was screaming somewhere nearby, but this road seemed abandoned. A stray piece of paper drifted on the breeze, the only thing here that was moving.

Mao Mao snatched it out of the air and stuffed it into a nearby garbage can.  _ Litterbugs. _

“Hello?” Adorabat called, her voice echoing down the empty street. 

“What’s the plan, Mao?” Badgerclops asked. His back was pressed up against Mao Mao’s. They moved as a unit, Mao Mao walking forwards and Badgerclops backwards. Badgerclops’s blaster was out. Mao Mao had Geraldine unsheathed.

“We clear this sector, then find someone who can tell us what the hell is going on.”

“Do you think the monster is here?!” Adorabat whipped her head around looking for it.

Mao Mao shook his head, keeping his eyes on the scene in front of him instead of looking at Adorabat. “Too quiet. Everyone’s gone.”

“Yeah,” Badgerclops agreed, “it’s more like the monster was already here.”

“If there even is a monster,” Mao Mao added.

They reached an intersection where a storefront burned. One of its windows was shattered. Still back to back, Mao Mao and Badgerclops spun in a slow circle. 

“Clear?” Mao Mao asked.

“Clear.” Badgerclops broke away from him. “Adorabat, fire control!” He retracted his hand into his robotic arm, swapping it for a wide nozzle. He unplugged the arm from his shoulder with a pop and connected it to a nearby fire hydrant. One quick turn of a wrench later and the arm was spewing water like a fire hose. Adorabat aimed the stream of water, flying the nozzle up to douse the second floor after she finished with the first.

All the while, Mao Mao swept the area for any sweetypies or monsters. He returned just as they had finished dealing with the fire. “There’s nobody here!” He sounded frustrated. “It’s a ghost town.”

Badgerclops reattached his arm. He shook a few residual drips of water out of the tip of the nozzle, then swapped back to hand mode. “How are we going to figure out what’s going on?”

“I can fly recon!” Adorabat offered, shooting up into the sky.

“No!” Mao Mao yelled. Badgerclops whipped his arm up at her, grabbing her out of the sky and reeling her back to them.

“It’s too dangerous,” Mao Mao explained. “We don’t know what the threat is, Adorabat. We can’t risk splitting up. For all we know, moving as a group is the only thing that’s kept us alive so far.”

Adorabat was amazed.  _ Mao Mao is so smart! And Badgerclops is so calm! They’re not scared at all, not even a little. This is SO COOL! _

Mao Mao’s ear twitched. A rumbling sound was approaching from the intersection they’d just cleared.

Badgerclops heard it too. “Adorabat, behind me!” He charged up a beam, pointing it towards the intersection. The rumbling grew louder, and then…

Slim Pigguns burst around the corner, drifting in a massive monster truck. He had some sort of face paint on. He laughed wildly, gunning the engine and burning his tires. “The end is here! Only the strong will survive! I’ll rule over all of you!” He shouted this at Mao Mao, who was completely stunned. The tires finally caught traction on the road and the monster truck shot forward, disappearing down the street. Pigguns’s laughter faded along with the roar of the engine.

“That bodes well!” Badgerclops said with fake cheeriness.

“Um, Mao Mao? Is it the end of the world?” Adorabat mostly sounded confused.

Mao Mao sighed, tension releasing slightly. “No, Adorabat, I don’t think it is. I think something stupid is going on.”

Badgerclops nodded in agreement. “Let’s just like, keep running towards the screaming until we find a sweetypie who can tell us what’s up.”

“But what about the monster?!”

Mao Mao sheathed his katana. “We’ll be fine, Adorabat.” He sounded annoyed. “Let’s move.”

They ran through the streets, righting trash cans and putting out fires as they went. Somehow, less than two hours since their last patrol, the city had gone full apocalypse. Stores were looted, walls were spray-painted, garbage cans were set on fire. A car had crashed into a nearby hydrant, which was now spewing water. Several cars sat empty, abandoned by their drivers with the lights still on. One was flipped on its hood, skid marks all around.

Mao Mao angrily wrote up a parking ticket and slapped it to the vehicle, muttering under his breath. 

Finally, they reached the epicenter of the chaos. Sweetypies were running hysterically, arms over their heads as they screamed. Mao Mao watched as Kevin threw himself through the window out of a nearby house, breaking the glass and landing on the street with a squeak. Badgerclops swiveled his head around, checking every possible direction for a monster. All he saw were cars swerving and crashing, narrowly avoiding fleeing citizens.

Mao Mao stormed up to Kevin and grabbed him by the straps of his overalls. “What. Happened.”

Kevin looked up at him, dazed. Then his eyes lit up. “Shewiff Mao Mao! You’re hewe! We’we saved!”

“Why’s everyone freaking out, man?” Badgerclops asked.

“Thewe was a… a bee!”

Mao Mao dropped him to the ground. “A… a bee? You did-” he gestured around wildly- “ALL of this… BECAUSE OF A  _ BEE?! _ ” He roared that last part at the sky.

Badgerclops pinched the bridge of his nose. ”Oh my god. Adorabat, could you…” He looked over at Adorabat and stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes were wide open, pupils tiny with fear. They were darting around everywhere, and she was breathing rapidly. Badgerclops put a hand on her. “Hey, Adorabat, what’s-”

Her eyes focused. “BEE!” she screamed, attempting to fly away in panic. Mao Mao grabbed her and held her with them. 

“Adorabat! It’s just a bee! And it’s not even here! Kevin just SAID the word ‘bee’ and you started freaking out!”

She calmed down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Mao Mao…“

“Gonna be honest, dude,” Badgerclops said to Mao Mao, “I’m getting a little bit sick of the sweetypies.” 

“Ugh, tell me about it. If they’re so afraid of bees, how do they even have honey?”

Honey poked her head out silently from behind a nearby car.

“No! We weren’t talking about you!” Badgerclops yelled. “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself as he transformed his hand into a megaphone. He held the mouthpiece up to Mao Mao’s face.

“EVERYONE STOP!” Mao Mao yelled into the megaphone. The chaos settled down. One wayward car crashed into a lamppost. “The situation has been dealt with! Go back to your homes!” Several sweetypies appeared from hiding places, looking around cautiously. “Yeah, go on. Get out of here. Your fines and arrest warrant notices for all of the property damage will be in your mailboxes tomorrow.”

Badgerclops grabbed an uprooted road sign from Ketchup’s hands as she walked by. “Seriously dude? Come on.”

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves!!” Mao Mao concluded, calling after the dispersing crowd through the megaphone. He turned back to Badgerclops and Adorabat. “Well, that was stupid.”

Badgerclops laughed. “Sure was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love how the sweetypies are constantly like one minor incident away from going full Mad Max bullshit. 
> 
> I was initially struggling for what to do with this prompt; I really wasn't interested in the mental illness interpretation of "madness", both because it's reductive and it doesn't really make sense with the characters of the show. I thought about mania, like in Sugar Berry Fever, but honestly the show covered that topic in Sugar Berry Fever, so I felt no need to retread that ground. Then I thought about madness as mayhem and I was like "oh fuck, this is it."


	13. Boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orangusnake and the rest of the Sky Pirates wire the sheriff's department HQ mountain with explosives. It's the ultimate plan.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Orangusnake asked, poking skeptically at the thick wire which ran along the ground.

"Now, I say boy, I am a demolitions _expert,"_ Boss Hosstrich replied. "You just listen to me and we'll turn this entire mountain to dust faster'n you can say 'ker-blam!'" 

"I don't know boss, I can say kerblam pretty fast," Ratarang said. He shoved an explosive charge into a hole they'd drilled in the rock.

"He's not being literal, dummy." Ramaraffe twisted a pair of wires together. "Right boss?"

Orangusnake sighed. He really missed having Steelwing, Thunderfist, and all the other more… capable pirates around.  _ I can't believe they abandoned me after ONE measly airship crash, _ he thought. _ Cowards! _

"Everything's ready now," Boss Hosstrich said, stepping back from the tangle of wires. He held a thick, coiled wire under his arm. "Alright now, everyone stand back with me." He began to walk away from the mountain, laying the wire behind him as he went.

The rest of the sky pirates followed, carefully avoiding stepping on the thick cord. Orangusnake glared up at Mao Mao’s headquarters, which sat on the edge of the mountain.  _ Let’s see how he likes this. _

Boss Hosstrich handed Orangusnake the detonator. “Now just press here and those pesky sheriffs’ll be blown to kingdom come!” 

Orangusnake rubbed his thumb around the rim of the button. This would be the end of Mao Mao for sure, and then the Ruby Pure Heart would be theirs.

“Ey, boss!” Ratarang called. “Say somethin’ cool before you blow it!”

“Yeah!” Ramaraffe cheered.

Lord Orangusnake grinned. He’d been workshopping this line for weeks. “Get ready sheriff,” he called up at the station, “because this plan is REALLY going to…  _ blow you away!” _

He slammed down on the detonator button. Three short beeps emitted from the controller, and then…

And then…

…

“GAH!” Orangusnake threw the useless detonator on the ground, whirling around to face Boss Hosstrich. “Are you KIDDING ME?!” he yelled, getting up in Boss Hosstrich’s face. “You call yourself a demolitions expert?!”

“Well now hold on I say, j-just give it a minute, and-”

A single charge detonated, causing a few sheets of rock to slough off of the mountain. They froze up, tense with anticipation. They waited…

Nothing else happened. 

“You are all USELESS!” Orangusnaked screamed, beginning to stomp towards the mountain.

“Stop!” Boss Hosstrich yelled. He frantically threw a lasso around Orangusnake, dragging him to the ground.

Orangusnake glared at him from the ground with murderous fury. “Boss Hosstrich! What is the meaning of this?!”

“I cannot, I say CANNOT let you near those explosives. Any one of them might go off at any time! As long as they’re connected to the wires, we are ALL in danger!”

“Fine! So we’ll just leave them there!”

“But boss,” Ramaraffe said, “what if someone gets hurt?”

“Yeah,” Ratarang chimed in, “we don’t wanna blow up nobody other than that Mao Mao guy.”

Orangusnake pounded the ground with his fist, throwing a tiny tantrum. Then he sighed. “You’re right. Boss Hosstrich, how do we get rid of them if we can’t get any closer?”

“Well, I reckon what we need is a professional removal team.”

“But boss! Where are we gonna get one of those?”

Orangusnake put his head in his hands. He already knew exactly who they’d have to call. They were probably already on their way, in fact. He stood up, letting the loose lasso fall from his body. Grimacing, he typed a number into his cell phone.

“Pure Heart Valley Sheriff’s Department! Mao Mao speaking.”

“FOOL! I mean, Mao Mao, we…” he gritted his teeth. “We need your help.”

===

Half an hour later, the detonation cables had been severed with precision and the explosive charges removed and confiscated. The sky pirates sat on the ground, hands cuffed behind their backs. Mao Mao stood over them, lecturing. “Now, what did we learn?”

“Don’t play with explosives…” Orangusnake muttered, looking away.

“Good!” Mao Mao walked behind him and uncuffed him. “Now go back to your ship!”

“Yes, Mao Mao,” Orangusnake said, hanging his head. “Come on,” he said to the other Sky Pirates, “let’s go to our rooms.”

“You better think about what you’ve done!” Mao Mao called after them as they shuffled into the forest.

“Yeah, only I get to play with explosives!” Badgerclops yelled.

Orangusnake groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow writing a group of four characters is so much harder than a group of three. Go figure.
> 
> Short one today because I spent the day shopping for houseware stuff with a friend! I recently moved to Seattle from New York and only brought clothes with me, so I need everything from a couch to drink coasters.


	14. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some nights, Mao Mao just can't sleep. This is one of those nights.

The room was dark, a sliver of moonlight providing the only illumination. It crept around the curtains, barely visible at all. But Mao Mao stared at its faded edges which fell across the carpet and his bunk. 

He turned over yet again. He'd been awake for far too long. Gazing at the dimly-lit masses of their furniture had stopped being entertaining an hour ago, so now he stared up at the bottom of Adorabat's bunk instead. He reached up and gently ran his hand across the slats.

The blankets were too hot. He threw them off, kicking at them with his feet. He was bored and uncomfortable, and now he was angry too.  _ Why can't I ever just fall asleep? _

He couldn't bear to just lie there anymore. Silently getting to his feet, he wandered out into the living room. There was no need for him to turn on any lights; his eyes were adjusted to the darkness.

But there  _ was _ a light on. A familiar clip-on lamp, clamped to the end table beside the sofa. A quiet melody chirped from somewhere nearby. Its source was obscured by the back of the couch. 

Mao Mao approached quietly, trying not to disturb anything. He circled until he could see who was on the couch, though he already knew the answer.

Badgerclops lay on the sofa, his drawing light shining on his face and body. A soft blue blanket covered him from the chest down. Sitting on his stomach was a portable game console, its screen throwing a colored glow to the ceiling. It was the source of the chirping melody. He wasn’t playing it, though; his hands were at his sides, and he was staring straight up at the ceiling.

Mao Mao wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Although he was tired and frustrated, he put on a cheery face and approached. “Staying up all night playing video games again, huh Badgerclops?”

Badgerclops jumped when Mao Mao spoke, nearly dropping the game console from his stomach. “O-oh, hey Mao,” he said, smiling weakly. “Yeah, just gaming, man!” He forced out a chuckle. The music from the game continued beeping quietly.

Mao Mao didn’t know what to do next. He hadn’t really had anything in mind when he’d gotten up; he was just bored and uncomfortable and angry. It wasn’t like Badgerclops was in his way. But him being here had thrown Mao Mao off. Something stirred inside his heart. He remembered why he’d been having trouble sleeping in the first place. A little company would be a lot better than wandering around alone with his thoughts.

He carefully lifted Badgerclops’s legs and sat down on the couch, lowering them back on top of his lap and fixing the blanket to ensure that they were still covered. “What are you playing?”

Badgerclops looked surprised, then confused. He tilted the screen towards Mao Mao. The light was a little harsh. “It’s Final Quest IV,” Badgerclops said. There was a hint of reticence in his voice.

“Four? Aren’t they on like, twelve now?”

Badgerclops nodded.

“So, why are you… replaying this one?”

“Just felt like it, I guess.”

Mao Mao looked at the screen. The characters in the party stood in a line on the screen, in the middle of some town. They were just idling.

“So why are you up?” Badgerclops asked, moving the handheld to the coffee table.

Mao Mao stared down at the blanket. “Oh, you know, just… needed a glass of water! That’s all.”

The game’s song reached its end. Things were silent for a moment.

“Then why did you sit down?”

The melody restarted.

Mao Mao froze, caught out on his lie.  _ Idiot, _ he thought.  _ What kind of a plan was that? _ He looked away, towards the kitchen. "Do you ever… not want to fall asleep? Because you know if you do, you'll have a bad dream?"

Badgerclops shook his head. "No… I'm sorry, Mao."

"It's fine," Mao Mao said quickly, "forget it."

Badgerclops looked like he wanted to say something, but he stayed silent.

Mao Mao felt uncomfortably hot under the blanket and the weight of Badgerclops's legs. It was a mistake coming out here. "Don't let me interrupt you, Badgerclops. You can keep playing your game." He began to maneuver his way off of the couch.

"I'm not actually playing," Badgerclops said, catching Mao Mao off guard. "I was… I couldn't sleep either."

"...Why not?" Mao Mao was curious, and concerned.

"I don't know, man. Sometimes my brain just… won't turn off. I just sit there and go over checklists in my head, or have fake conversations and stuff. And I can't make it go away."

Mao Mao didn't really know what to say to that. He'd never stayed up because his brain wouldn't "turn off"; he had no idea what that felt like. When he couldn't sleep, it was always because of some memory he couldn't forget. That was why he here tonight in the first place.

"What about the game?" Mao Mao asked.

Badgerclops picked up the handheld and gazed at it lovingly. "When I was younger, I didn't really have a lot of friends. The other kids thought I was scary and weird. Y’know, the whole missing eye thing? Anyway, my family didn't have a lot of money, but my parents managed to get me Final Quest IV from a garage sale, and I played it for hours. It was my favorite game. It felt good to be the hero, you know? And to be… part of a team." He sighed. "Sorry, it's stupid."

Mao Mao shook his head. "No, I… it's… Badgerclops, you're…" He groaned. Why was this stuff always so hard? “It’s not stupid.”

Badgerclops smiled slightly. “Thanks, Mao.”

Mao Mao returned the smile.

"So, sometimes when I can't sleep, I like to turn it on and just… listen to the music." He turned up the volume a little.

Mao Mao leaned a bit closer to the console. The tune was simple, only a few layers of basic synthesized sounds. But it was peaceful. Even without all of the associations Badgerclops had, Mao Mao could see how it might make someone feel… safe.

“It’s nice,” he said after listening for a while.

“Yeah.” Badgerclops turned the volume back down. “Alright man, now it’s your turn. What’s on your mind?”

Mao Mao wriggled into the blanket a little more. Leaving less of himself exposed. He stared towards the darkened TV. “I was… thinking about my family. Sometimes I think about their heroic legacy, and I feel like I’m… I’m not a part of it. There’s all this shame, and guilt, and then I think about my father and the way he hated me…” Mao Mao took a shaky breath. He didn’t know if he could get the next part out. But whatever was driving him to speak this far kept him going. He wanted Badgerclops to understand him. He wanted comfort. 

“I have this dream sometimes where I’m back home again. And even though I can talk, nobody sees or hears me. And then when I finally touch someone to get their attention, my hands turn into these… vicious monster claws. And I just tear right through them like paper. I turn into this weird, horrible monster, and then my father… stabs me through the chest with his sword. And he’s always,  _ always _ grinning. Then he twists the blade and I wake up.”

Mao Mao found himself clutching Badgerclops’s leg. Just recalling the nightmare was harrowing, reliving bits of it in his head. He was scared to look at Badgerclops’s face and see his reaction. But he did.

Badgerclops’s eye was open, seemingly alarmed. He was frowning, but in a concerned way. His whole mouth was quivering a little. Mao Mao wasn’t quite sure what all of that meant.

“Hey,” Badgerclops said gently, “crawl up here with me.” He patted the couch in front of his chest, turning on his side and scooting himself into the backrest to make some room. He lifted his legs off of Mao Mao’s lap.

Hesitantly, Mao Mao ducked his head under the blanket and clambered over Badgerclops’s body. It was extremely warm. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but something told him that things would be okay if he just reached where Badgerclops had pointed. The usual nagging feeling that this was pathetic and unheroic didn’t even surface.

He settled his head under Badgerclops’s chin, his neck bumping out around the curve of Badgerclops’s chest. Badgerclops carefully laid an arm over him. They stayed like that together, snuggled into each other’s bodies.

“That dream sounds awful, dude.” Badgerclops said. “You’re afraid you’ll have it again tonight?”

Mao Mao nodded, barely moving his head to avoid jostling Badgerclops.

Badgerclops cleared his throat. “Well, what if you, y’know… sleep here with me? Like this? Instead of going back to bed. Would that help?”

Mao Mao stayed quiet. He really didn’t know if it would.

“I was just thinking, you know, maybe you’ll be a little more comfortable, and then you’ll think about better things.”

“...Yeah, maybe.” Mao Mao’s voice was quiet.

The chiptune from the game gently started up again.

“Okay,” Badgerclops said, “let’s do it!” He turned out the clip-on light.

Mao Mao felt Badgerclops’s chest slowly rise and fall against his back. He wanted to sleep so badly. He was so tired. But he needed to say something first.

“Badgerclops?”

“Mhm?” the reply was barely audible.

“You’re… good. A good person, I mean. And it’s nice to have you around.” He paused. “I’m really glad you’re on my team. You make an excellent hero.” Something went tight in his chest. He wanted to say something else, but he didn’t understand what it was.

Badgerclops held him a little tighter. “Thank you, Mao Mao.”

Mao Mao finally closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this was a big one for me! I actually struggle with insomnia in real life, so I was very excited about this prompt. I got to write about Badgerclops's backstory, Mao Mao's dream psyche, AND gay pining? Tremendous.
> 
> I want to give a long-overdue shoutout to my wonderful boyfriend for beta reading almost every single one of these fics, and even inspiring a couple. They'd have a lot more typos and awkward pacing without his input!


	15. Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things you can never completely outrun. And sometimes, the closer you get to escaping, the more they come back to haunt you.

One of the perks of having a permanent address was mail. Instead of relying on expensive couriers who took weeks to track him down, Mao Mao could finally get mail in a simple and timely manner. It was a welcome change from his years of globetrotting adventure. And the best thing about it was the news.

Every day nearly a dozen newspapers from around the world would arrive at their door. Mao Mao eagerly took them in and read them in his downtime, relishing the knowledge from outside the valley. He searched them for mentions of heroes he'd adventured with before, friends who had gone their separate ways. He searched for news of the towns and cities and people he'd helped. And he searched for mentions of himself, of course.

He flipped open one of the papers now, sitting at their office desk. It was from Queen's Puddleland, where he'd first met Badgerclops. The front page displayed some national news - their prime minister had been caught out on a scandal, the tax code had been reworked following massive protests, and a large snowstorm was expected to cripple transit in the next week. Mao Mao skimmed all of these articles, taking in the facts but skipping the color. Keeping up to date on the affairs of the world was important, but it wasn't  _ really _ why he read the papers.

He took a sip of tea, flipping to the local section near the center. He folded out the page, and-

Mao Mao choked on his tea.  _ Badgerclops?! _

The photo was a little grainy, but it was definitely him. Badgerclops, with a steely look in his eye, aiming a blaster shot directly at the camera.

He coughed and hacked a few times, the hot tea scalding his throat.  _ Ow. _

“Badgerclops Named Prime Suspect in Kirwell Case” said the headline.

Eyes wide, Mao Mao began to read.

_ Kirwell Glenn, QP - At 2:13 AM this morning, a burglary was reported at the Kirwell Glenn museum of classical art. A guard at the struggling museum, which was slated to host an auction of several pieces in order to stay solvent, called local authorities after discovering the unconscious bodies of two of her co-workers. She reported that several of the pieces for auction had disappeared. The museum was placed in lockdown, and police barricaded the nearby streets in an effort to prevent the thief from escaping, but no perpetrator was found. _

_ In a press conference held on the steps of the museum, Chief Investigator Robert Locke stated that the main suspect in the case was the serial burglar known as Badgerclops. “We have worked the scene and gathered all the evidence and testimony we could,” Locke stated, “and at this time we believe that the M.O. matches with our existing profile of Badgerclops.” _

_ Badgerclops, a career criminal who has been associated with many high-profile burglaries and break-ins, currently has a bounty on his head from his previous crimes. The amount is expected to rise once the police department puts out an official warrant for his arrest.  _

_ Reporters at the conference were skeptical, as Badgerclops’s last known high-profile theft was nearly two years ago. When pressed on this, Locke explained: “It’s not uncommon for wanted criminals to disappear for some time in order to let the heat die down. We have not ruled out the possibility of a copycat burglar, but the cleanliness of the execution suggests a long-time criminal. It is unlikely that another high-profile burglar would pin their work on Badgerclops, so he has emerged as the most likely suspect.” _

_ Locke would not comment on any more details of the crime, including what exactly had been stolen and what he meant by “cleanliness of execution” with regard to the incident.  _

“Hey man,” Badgerclops said, crunching on an apple as he walked into the room, “whatcha readin’?” His eyes lit up. “Ooh, is that the  _ Puddleland Star?  _ What’s going on back at home?” He stepped closer, then stopped short as he saw the photo of himself. “What’s-”

Mao Mao shot to his feet, the chair rolling behind him loudly. He slammed the paper on the desk. “Where were you last night?!” he shouted, pointing at Badgerclops.

“Uh, like, 6 feet above you?” Badgerclops shrugged. “We share a bunk bed, dude.”

“Then how do you explain THIS?!” Mao Mao pointed at the headline.

Badgerclops read it, confusion growing on his face. He leaned down and skimmed the article. “They’re gonna increase my bounty?!”

“That’s what happens when you steal famous paintings, Badgerclops!”

“Dude,” Badgerclops said, turning to him, “you don’t seriously think I stole those paintings, do you?”

“Don’t try to manipulate me, criminal!” He unsheathed his sword.

Anger flashed across Badgerclops’s face. “Dude, we live like four hours from Queen’s Puddleland! And that’s by aerocycle! You saw me go to bed at midnight! I LITERALLY could not have been there!”

Mao Mao glanced again at the time in the article. 2:13 AM. “Oh, you’re right!” He slipped his katana back into its sheath. “It was all just a misunderstanding. And to think I almost arrested you! Hah!” He barked out a laugh.

Badgerclops didn’t say anything. Mao Mao looked over at him.

A few tears welled in his eye. He was still angry, but also hurt. Betrayed. Mao Mao knew immediately that he had fucked up. “Badgerclops, I-”

“Shut UP, Mao Mao!” He yelled, then sniffled. “Just shut up! You don’t…” A hiccup. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be me!” He wiped at his eye. “I try so hard to be a good person, and nobody even cares! And then some… JERK in another country leaves badger hair at a crime scene, and you just turn on me! You never believed that I was innocent for even a second!” A fresh sob overtook him. “You’re supposed to be my friend, Mao Mao! But you think I’m just a criminal, don’t you?!”

“N-no, it’s not like that! I was just-”

“And now my bounty’s gonna be even bigger! I didn’t even do anything!” His breathing was shaky and panicked. “People will come after me, man!” He was crying now. “I just wanted to make things right! I thought I could do something good here… Why can’t it just go away? I’m trying so hard…” He grabbed Mao Mao, burying his head in Mao Mao’s shoulder. Mao Mao felt hot tears splash against his fur. “I’ve been running away for so long, Mao! I don’t want to be a bad guy! But nobody’s going to forget all the things I did!”

Mao Mao was completely out of his depth. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, hoping that some useful words would happen. They didn’t. He stayed there, frozen, until Badgerclops pulled away. Before he could attempt to say anything else, Badgerclops ran out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late one tonight! I didn't really like the work I did on the bus today, so I scrapped half of it and took things in a new direction instead. Unfortunately, that (on top of the fifty billion home tasks I did today) means I was working on it pretty late!
> 
> I don't think Mao Mao has any clue how scary it is to have a bounty on your head. Anyone, anywhere might recognize you and decide to try to claim it. You can't trust anybody for even a moment. Badgerclops had it rough, y'all.


	16. Ignorance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can you take care of your friend if you don't even know something's wrong?

Mao Mao stared hard ahead, every muscle in his body tense. They were walking back to the aerocycle, having just defeated their third monster today. Badgerclops and Adorabat were laughing and making jokes. He smiled and laughed along too.  _ They don't need to know. _

"That slash was AWESOME!!" Adorabat was saying, flying in a little loop. "How did you do it, Mao Mao?!"

Mao Mao laughed. "It's all about footwork, Adorabat." He winced for a fraction of a second as his hand brushed past his sash, loosening its tight grip on the wound. But he regained his composure nearly immediately, launching into an explanation of how to position oneself during a fight. Adorabat was enraptured.

Mao Mao could tell that his breathing was tense. He tried as hard as he could to regulate it as he slipped onto the Aerocycle. A sharp, dizzying pain in his ribs protested the attempt. He grimaced, face now hidden under his helmet. That last fight hadn't been easy on his body. The monster had slammed its arm into his stomach with devastating force. The beating had reopened an old scar of his, a deep gash near his appendix. And from the feeling of his breathing, he'd broken a rib too.

"These monsters have been like, wicked easy today," Badgerclops said.

Mao Mao laughed. It was excruciating. "Yeah, real pushovers!" He realized with horror that Badgerclops was about to put his hands on his sides, holding on to him like he usually did when they rode on the aerocycle. He panicked. One, the tightness of the sash was the only thing keeping his wound from bleeding way more than it already had. Two, it was soaked with blood. If Badgerclops touched it, he’d know for sure.

“Badgerclops!” he said, slapping Badgerclops’s hands away. “I just remembered! I need you to, uhh…” He racked his pain-addled mind. “To… To hold these!” He handed Badgerclops two shuriken.

Badgerclops stared at the weapons. “So, you want me to hold your dangerous pointy thingies… instead of holding on to the bike… while we fly around at high speeds?”

Sweat poured down Mao Mao’s brow. “Uhh… yes?”

“Haha, okay!” Badgerclops said, grasping the bladed projectiles.

_ Phew. _

“Aww, I want something cool to hold too!” Adorabat pouted. “Mao Mao, give me your sword!”

“No! Only Badgerclops gets to hold dangerous weapons instead of the aerocycle while we fly. Now let’s go!”

He revved the vehicle up into the sky, a wave of nausea passing over him as he did. He’d lost more blood than he thought. He gritted his teeth.  _ It’s fine. You’re a hero, and heroes don’t get hurt. They won’t think of you as a hero if they find out you got hurt. _

“Mao, the house!” Badgerclops shouted.

Mao Mao barely swerved in time to avoid crashing into their HQ.  _ Oops.  _ It was getting hard to pay attention to things. He brought the aerocycle down for a slightly bumpy landing. “Okay, great job everyone! Let’s debrief. To the office!” He dismounted from the aerocycle and felt a horrible flash of pain. Was it getting harder to breathe?

“Yo Mao Mao, what do you want with these?” Badgerclops shook the two shuriken at him.

“Uh, just… toss ‘em in the dojo! I’ll organize everything later.”

“‘Kay!” Badgerclops threw the weapons towards the dojo, lodging them squarely in the eyes of the training dummy set up there.

Mao Mao stood in front of the chalkboard in the office, Adorabat and Badgerclops taking seats facing him. They did their best to debrief after every case; it was a good way to find and address their weaknesses, plus it helped break things down for Adorabat. Mao Mao turned to the board and realized that this side was covered in notes for an ongoing investigation. He laughed.  _ Ow. _ “Just a sec!”

As he stretched upward to spin the board, a blinding pain cracked through him. He screamed. “AAAHHHHh’ve got a better idea, actually!” He tried his best to play the yell off as just the start of a sentence. “Adorabat, why don’t you lead this time?” He coughed aggressively into his hand.  _ Oh. Blood. _

_ Huh. _

Adorabat shot up out of her seat, flipping the board around and grabbing the chalk. “Okay, first, we gotta draw the monster.” She began to illustrate, chalk scraping across the board.

Mao Mao fell heavily into her now-vacant seat. The edges of his vision seemed darker than usual. Probably nothing, though. Besides, Adorabat was still talking. Mao Mao gave her a thumbs up and grinned. He wasn’t really sure what she was saying. He couldn’t pay attention; all of his energy was focused on looking normal and attentive.

“And, um, that’s what happened!” Adorabat said, finishing her debrief. 

Mao Mao clapped. Each time his hands made contact, a little shock went through his stomach. “Great work, Adorabat! I’m so proud of you.” He reached out to pat her on the head, then realized that his glove still had wet blood on it. He switched hands.

“Badgerclops? Can I go play in the park now?”

Badgerclops checked the time on his arm. “Sure, but it’s going to get dark soon! Be back by five, okay?”

She nodded excitedly, then flew off towards town.

Badgerclops picked up his sketchbook and turned to Mao Mao. “So, I was thinking-”

Mao Mao’s vision blurred. The pain was too much. He couldn’t take it anymore. His body fell apart like a line of dominoes. First his breathing went ragged again. Then his perfect posture crumbled. In an instant he collapsed into the chair, wincing and clutching at his stomach. His face contorted as pain washed across him. 

“Mao Mao!” Badgerclops rushed to his side, sketchbook clattering to the floor. “Jesus dude, you’re covered in blood!”

Mao Mao coughed up some more. “Badgerclops, I’m… I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have-”

“Whatever you’re going to say,” Badgerclops interrupted, “don’t. Just tell me where you’re hurt. And hang on.” He lifted Mao Mao from the chair, keeping strain off of his stomach as much as possible. He stretched Mao Mao out on the coffee table.

“One of my…” Mao Mao winced. “One of my scars opened up again. I think it got a rib, too.”

“Got it.” Badgerclops’s face was grim as he began to cut Mao Mao’s bloody sash away from the wound. “I’m gonna dress it in a real bandage and then we’re going straight to the hospital.”

Mao Mao was woozy now. He nodded. The tight, even pressure of a fresh bandage would feel good. He hoped he would still be conscious when Badgerclops finished it.

Badgerclops worked quickly and methodically. The open wound was pretty sickening. But this was hardly the first time he’d played field medic for Mao Mao. Soon the torn flesh was wrapped in fresh gauze, tight pressure staunching the flow of blood. Badgerclops carefully sat Mao Mao on the aerocycle, wrapping his arms past him to the handlebars. 

“A hero doesn’t…” Mao Mao said weakly as they took off, “A hero doesn’t get hurt like this…”

Badgerclops gripped the handlebars tighter. “You still need to tell me, Mao. Just… stay with me, okay? We’ll be there soon.” He gently kissed the top of Mao Mao’s head. “Stay with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting a touch repetitive here, but I really like the idea of Mao Mao frequently trying to hide the fact that he's physically hurt. Like most of the time he acts normal until he's alone, and then stitches things up by himself. Even if he can't be a perfect hero who never gets hit, he can make sure that others don't see him get hurt.


	17. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Mao Mao's budding relationship unfolds over the course of several therapy sessions with Ol' Blue.

Ol’ Blue finished his last note and flipped the binder closed, placing it back in his filing cabinet. He turned to look at the clock.  _ Oh. Almost three. _

Almost time for Mao Mao.

He sighed as he pulled out Mao Mao’s file. They’d only had two sessions before this, but they were both very… challenging. Mao Mao refused to talk about anything further past than last week. He wanted results without addressing the underlying problems. Blue knew that it would take a long time to help him get better. He was committed, but the task still seemed enormous.

After straightening up the office and making everything as tranquil as he could, Ol’ Blue quietly opened the door to the waiting room. Mao Mao was standing just beyond it, arms crossed. “Let’s get this over with,” he said gruffly as he stepped past Blue into the room.

“Good afternoon, Mao Mao.” Dr. Blue was unfazed. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

Mao Mao sat on the edge of the faux leather chaise lounge. So far he’d always started their sessions like that, attempting to keep himself on equal footing. But his inability to maintain eye contact while discussing his emotions meant that he’d always end up lying down eventually. Dr. Blue wished that half of every session wouldn’t be spent just getting Mao Mao to talk. But he knew that with time, Mao Mao would improve.

“Why don’t you start by telling me about something good that happened this week.”

Mao Mao snorted. “Badgerclops fell down the palace steps. You should have seen it! He was bouncing and rolling all the way down the mountain.”

It took every ounce of his composure not to sigh. He chronicled the response in his notes.

“Do you usually like it when Badgerclops gets hurt?”

Mao Mao became nervous. “What? No, I… ugh, forget it. You’re no fun.”

Blue cracked a smile. “So I’ve been told.”

\---

Mao Mao was being unusually timid today. He tried to play it off, laughing and making small talk, but Ol’ Blue could see right through his body language. It had been obvious since the moment he’d opened the door.

They’d been working together for three months now, and Mao Mao had slowly gotten used to the idea of therapy. There was still an incredible amount of work left to do, of course, but at least Mao Mao wasn’t actively fighting him anymore. He took down some notes as Mao Mao told him about his week, and then:

“Mao Mao, you seem preoccupied. Is there something on your mind you’d like to tell me?”

Mao Mao looked surprised, and then embarrassed. He crossed his arms, staring hard at the ceiling. “I, uh… I’m not sure…”

Ol’ Blue gently placed his notebook down. “Nothing leaves this office, Mao Mao. This is your time. If you have something you want to say, I’m here to listen.”

Mao Mao clenched and unclenched his fists a few times. “Lately I’ve just been…” He laughed nervously. “You know how we talked about feeling… small?”

Blue nodded. This seemed like it was going somewhere. It felt good to be making progress.

“Well, it’s been happening more often lately, but it’s… different.”

“Is something making you feel small?”

Mao Mao nodded. “It’s… It’s Badgerclops. I just keep noticing how big he is, and sometimes when he hugs me I, uh… I want to cry?”

Ol’ Blue blinked.  _ Unexpected. _ He did some quick thinking. It was a very unusual way to describe it, but given Mao Mao’s system of complexes and disorders, this feeling  _ could _ be infatuation. Dr. Blue didn’t want to overstep Mao Mao’s boundaries and make him clam up; he’d have to tread carefully.

“Is it a good feeling?”

Mao Mao twisted up his cape in his hand. “I don’t know. My heart starts beating so fast, and I start to feel small, it feels like… It’s like I’m panicking, but I’m not scared of Badgerclops!” He laughed at the thought. “...Am I?”

Ol’ Blue shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s it.” He had some ideas of what that panic might be. But it was too soon for that discussion. “Why don’t you work together with Badgerclops and try to figure out what makes you feel that way?”

A deep red blush overtook Mao Mao’s face. He scrunched down into his cape. “No no no, I can’t do that! It’d be too embarrassing!”

_ Infatuation. _ “Just give it a try, Mao Mao. I’m sure Badgerclops will be very helpful.”

\---

Mao Mao came to their next session with a smile on his face. It was the first time he’d ever arrived anything other than grumpy or nervous. Dr. Blue was keenly aware of the difference. He waited for Mao Mao to get comfortable on the couch before digging into it.

“Okay Mao Mao, let’s start with my favorite. Tell me one good thing that happened this week.”

Mao Mao’s smile grew bigger, though he also drew into himself a bit. Shrinking himself like that was always a sign of embarrassment. But he was really smiling.  _ Something good must have happened with Badgerclops. _ “Well, Adorabat went on an overnight field trip for skewl, so Badgerclops and I had the house to ourselves for the first time in a while.”

“What did you do?”

“Mostly our usual stuff; we cooked dinner, we talked, but it was just… nice.” He blushed. “Then we watched a movie together, and, uh… remember how you said I should talk to him about the way I feel when he touches me?”

Ol’ Blue nodded.

“It wasn’t easy, but… I did. And then when we were watching the movie, he put his arm around me, and then he asked me if it was okay, and it was amazing. He was careful, and it made me feel good, like…” Mao Mao was grasping for words.

“He respected your boundaries,” Dr. Blue supplied.

Mao Mao looked confused.

“You had a discussion with him about how it makes you feel when he touches you, and then he made sure to ask if you were comfortable when he did. You set some boundaries, and he respected them. That’s an important quality in any kind of relationship, Mao Mao. It’s no surprise that it made you feel good.”

Mao Mao settled back into the chaise, smiling a little more.

\---

A little more than half a year after their first session, Dr. Blue had noticed some real changes in Mao Mao. He was still suffering in many ways, but his demeanor was different than it had been when they’d first met. He almost always came in the door with a smile, happy to see Blue and be back in his office. His walls were already  _ mostly  _ down before they began. He was willing to talk directly about his family, which was a major step. They had made progress.

But not long into this session, Mao Mao grew nervous again. Blue let their conversational thread die down so Mao Mao could have space to talk.

“Dr. Blue, I was thinking a lot about Badgerclops this week, and I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “I think I might have…  _ feelings _ for him.”

Ol’ Blue framed his response carefully. “Do you mean romantically?”

Mao Mao nodded, blushing. “I thought about it a lot, and it explains why I started feeling so weird around him. I think maybe I’ve always kind of felt like that actually, but there was just too much other stuff going on for me to even notice.”

Blue was thrilled, for several reasons. Chief among them was the fact that Mao Mao had evidently been practicing introspection outside their sessions, and had been really gaining something from it. 

Dr. Blue nodded impartially. “I’m proud of you for thinking about how you feel and coming to that conclusion, Mao Mao. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

Mao Mao looked elated and terrified. “I can’t believe I actually just said it. How can I be in love with BADGERCLOPS?! I mean, sure, he’s the greatest guy I know, but…”

Ol’ Blue smiled slightly as Mao Mao kept talking. This was the beginning of something good. He could tell.

\---

“You know, Mao Mao,” Ol’ Blue said, putting his pen down. “I’ve noticed something different about you lately. Any idea what it might be?” At this point it had been over a year since they’d begun to talk.

Mao Mao cocked his head. “Something different about me?” He looked upward as he searched his brain. “I started using a new fur conditioner a few weeks ago. Badgerclops gave it to me for my birthday. Is that it?”

Ol’ Blue laughed. “No, Mao Mao. You smile now. When you’re walking around town, you look happy.”

Mao Mao processed that. “I… I am smiling a lot more now, yeah. I guess things are pretty good. I mean, being together with Badgerclops just… makes a lot of things better.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Blue smiled. He was thrilled to see Mao Mao happy. This was what his job was all about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my boyfriend's idea for the prompt and I loved it very much. I've been wanting to write some more fics in this style, with lots of short scenes building an overall picture. I have ideas for one that's purely dialogue too. So this was an excellent way to learn the ropes of that style.
> 
> I really wish Mao Mao going to therapy in the show hadn't just been a one-off gag. There's so much to explore there.


	18. Sprint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao and Badgerclops recover an important artifact from an ancient, crumbling tomb at the behest of the local inhabitants.

"One minute!" Mao Mao yelled, leaping over a deep pit in the floor. "Let's move!"

"Right behind you, dude!" Badgerclops yelled back, leaping out over the gap. He shot a grappling hook into the ceiling, swinging up into the air on the taut line. He whooped as he released it at the peak of his arc, nearly landing on Mao Mao. 

"Nice one!"

"Yeah, I- MAO MAO LOOK OUT!"

Mao Mao whipped his head forward just in time to see an enormous swinging axe slice past. He leapt up, grabbing the pole which the blade hung from and spinning around it. He used the momentum to launch himself to the next one. He repeated the maneuver, then dismounted from the third and final axe with a flip.

"Hah! Easy!"

"Show-off!" Badgerclops called, deftly weaving his way between the blades with precise timing.

Mao Mao laughed, slowing down to let Badgerclops catch up. He wanted to take a moment to rest, but by the sounds of rushing water and collapsing temple behind them, Mao Mao knew there wasn't time.

They skidded around the corner into a tight corridor. Spikes jutted from the walls. It would take way too long to slide between them, avoiding the points. “I got it!” Mao Mao called. He unsheathed his katana and slashed the wooden spears clean off at the walls, leaving a smooth hallway behind him.

“I thought we weren’t desecrating anything!” Badgerclops said. 

“In five minutes there won’t even be anything left to desecrate!” Mao Mao replied. “Come on!”

Water poured down from above in the next chamber. Jagged waterfalls burst from the crumbling rock ceiling, obscuring the way through. Mao Mao was about to run through one when Badgerclops grabbed him. “Dude, this room had like no floor! Remember?”

Mao Mao looked down sheepishly, realizing that he had been moments from running off into a void. Not that he couldn’t have saved himself with some quick thinking and a sword in the wall, but still.

“Let me handle this one.” Badgerclops’s eye spun wildly, taking in details from all around the room. He was calculating as fast as his brain would allow. He grabbed Mao Mao’s arm. “Hang on.” One carefully placed shot collapsed a portion of the wall and ceiling perfectly, leaving a stable path for them to rush across before the water overtook it.

“Uhhh, I thought we weren’t going to desecrate anything!” Mao Mao mocked.

“Shut up!”

The room ahead of them was already in the process of falling apart. Chunks of the ceiling rained down, smashing into rubble as they hit the ground. The terrain was uneven and dangerous.

"With me!" Badgerclops commanded, producing an umbrella-like energy shield from his blaster. Mao Mao joined him under it and they dashed across the room, keeping perfectly in sync. Massive pieces of rock crashed against their barrier. Badgerclops strained to keep it upright. Sweat beaded his brow. 

Mao Mao could hear the rushing water filling in behind them. The temple had been built under a lake, and now it was all collapsing in. They were almost out of the chamber now. Just one more hall, and then out to the light.

They slipped through the doorway moments before a pillar came crashing down behind them, sealing it off. They careened out of the entranceway, back into the harsh sunlight, rolling and tumbling down the wooded hillside. Mao Mao came to rest on his back, looking up and breathing heavily. Badgerclops was a few feet away, also exhausted but otherwise unscathed. They laid there, panting, for what felt like ages.

Then Mao Mao started to laugh. Badgerclops joined in, the adrenaline slowly leaving his body. He let it all come out, slowly subsiding back to normal (slightly shaky) breaths.

“Oh,” Badgerclops gasped, “Oh my god Mao Mao that was so stupid.”

“What are you-” he puffed out a breath. “What are you talking about? That was a piece of cake!”

“You’re the worst, man.” Badgerclops laughed again. “One of these days we’re gonna get ourselves killed.”

“Hasn’t happened yet!”

“You got the statue?” Badgerclops turned his head to face Mao Mao, but remained on his back.

“What, you mean the whole reason we came here? Forgot it, actually. Left it back in the temple.”

“Dang, guess we’ll just have to get the next one.”

They laughed. Mao Mao pulled the small golden statue from his sash. It was a tiny gold cat, sitting in an upright pose.

“Awww, it looks like you!” Badgerclops said, tickling at its nose with a claw.

“IT DOES NOT!” Mao Mao yelled, pulling the statue away. “And stop tickling it! This is an ancient artifact that’s sacred to the people who live here!”

“Dude I know, I was there too. I’m glad we got it out for them before the place collapsed.”

“Let this be a lesson, Badgerclops: take care of your temples  _ before _ they fall apart.”

“Hey man, maybe the  _ real _ lesson is don’t build a temple under a lake. Water damage is dangerous!”

Mao Mao cracked a smile, tucking the statue back into his sash. “Maybe we’ll get a medal this time.”

Badgerclops grinned back. “Us? No way. We’re unsung heroes, man. All of the work and none of the glory.”

Mao Mao sighed, staring up at the sky. He supposed Badgerclops was right. He’d been at this for years and not a single ballad had been written about him. Maybe it was just their fate to toil away in secret, unseen by the world.

“You were good in there.”

Mao Mao blushed. “Thanks… Uh, you too.”

Maybe he wasn’t  _ completely _ unsung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Badgerclops is right, the lesson is that water damage is terrible and you should address it as soon as you see it. This whole maomaoctober has actually just been a very long PSA.


	19. Risky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao asks Badgerclops to help him do something stupid, and Badgerclops agrees because he's sick of being the voice of reason. Things unfold poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short today because I wasn't in much of a writing mood. I was drawing Badgerclops and Mao Mao's outfits from my wedding fic with my boyfriend instead!

Badgerclops wasn’t big on risks.

One could say it was his personality, or his battle strategy, or the result of having a cybernetic mind which could calculate precise probabilities of success and failure. Whichever it was, the important result was that Badgerclops did his best not to make any risky moves.

This had become increasingly difficult since Mao Mao entered his life.

Now his days were just one long string of “Here Badgerclops, hold these deadly scorpions!” and “Hey Badgerclops, let’s fight these monsters with blindfolds on!” He groaned just thinking about it. Mao Mao took risks  _ because _ they were risky; when presented with two options, he would always choose the worse. It was infuriating.

So it was no surprise when Mao Mao told him his latest scheme.

“Come on Badgerclops, don’t be so boring! You  _ know _ it would be cool if I did the next monster fight unarmed!”

Badgerclops threw his hands up. “What is up with you, man?! Why can’t you just win the fight and enjoy the fact that you get to come home at the end!”

“Come on, Badgerclops! I’m just trying to have some fun! You’re unbelievably boring sometimes, did you know that?”

“Alright, fine. Next fight you’re unarmed, and you know what? I’ll throw you, too!”

Mao Mao looked the way Adorabat did when she heard an ice cream truck. “YES! Now THAT’S heroic! Fastball me right at them!” He laughed.

Badgerclops grinned. He was furious, of course. He fully intended to whip Mao Mao at the monster’s mouth as many times as possible.  _ Maybe if he gets eaten, _ Badgerclops thought,  _ he’ll stop taking so many stupid risks! _ He considered for a moment.  _ Wait, Mao Mao’s totally been eaten like ten times. And that’s just since I’ve known him. _

Before he could reconsider, the Monster alarm began blaring.

“Hah!” Mao Mao shouted, running to the fire pole which lead to the garage. “Let’s go!”

“Monster monster monster monster monster!!!” Adorabat screamed, shooting down the hole in the floor after him.

Badgerclops picked up Mao Mao’s sword. They’d definitely need it.

Moments later they were speeding through the air towards the monster. “Okay Badgerclops, remember!” Mao Mao called back to him. “You’re on chucking duty! Really get me in there so I can do some damage!”

“Yeah Mao, sure thing! Sounds really smart and cool! Great plan!”

The monster was unusual. It was large, quadrupedal, and covered in rusty red fur. Its underside was nearly pitch black. Where its head should have been, a large and heavy axe-like appendage sprouted out.

_ Damn it, _ Badgerclops thought,  _ no mouth. _

They dismounted the aerocycle. Mao Mao stood in front of Badgerclops expectantly, facing the strange creature.

“You really want me to throw you?”

Mao Mao nodded.

“At the monster with a giant axe for a head?”

Mao Mao gave a thumbs up, still not turning around.

“Even though it could send you flying like a baseball, or slice you in half clean out of the air, or spike you way into the ground?”

“I like those odds.”

“Those aren’t even- UGH alright FINE!” Badgerclops grabbed Mao Mao and chucked him at the monster, barely aiming. He was just so frustrated with Mao Mao’s behavior that he didn’t even bother.

“HEY, UGLY!” Mao Mao hollered. “LOOK OVER-”

Before he could finish, the creature slammed him with the broad side of its axe head, sending him flying back. He sailed far over Badgerclops’s head, disappearing into the distance.

Adorabat sucked in air through her teeth. “Ouch.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine. You wanna take care of this with me?” Badgerclops pointed at the monster, which looked a little confused.

===

It didn’t take nearly as long to find Mao Mao as Badgerclops had thought it would. He’d crashed straight through a roof in the city and landed square in the middle of a sweetypie’s living room. He was completely unconscious, of course, and the citizen whose house he had partially destroyed was far too terrified to move him. The commotion was instantly recognizable.

Badgerclops reeled Mao Mao out of the rubble. “Make sure his head doesn’t bump into anything, okay Adorabat?”

Adorabat nodded.

Badgerclops supposed that he should feel bad for having thrown his friend at an enormous axe-headed monster, but mostly he was just glad that he was right. It  _ had _ been a stupid idea. Maybe Mao Mao would learn something this time. If he woke up.

He slumped Mao Mao over his shoulder. “Alright Adorabat, let’s go home.”

Adorabat blinked. “Umm, shouldn’t we take him to a hospital?”

“The hospital?” Badgerclops scoffed. “Nah, wouldn’t risk it.”


	20. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Snugglemagne summons Mao Mao, Badgerclops, and Adorabat to guard and entertain him on a rainy day. What better way to pass the time than to play a little Dungeons & Dragons together?
> 
> Snugglemagne, Mao Mao, and Adorabat play. Badgerclops DMs. Mao Mao learns to let himself have fun and be vulnerable through roleplaying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got sent here through a direct link, don't worry! You don't need to read 19 other chapters! Every "chapter" in this work is a standalone daily fic.

The rain pounded on the intricate stained glass windows of King Snugglemagne’s palace, slipping down the colored panes in thick rivulets. The king had sent most of his retinue home before the rain began, leaving the large estate almost entirely empty. He’d even sent his guard detachment away. But that was fine; he had the  _ utmost _ confidence in their temporary replacements.

“So you see,” King Snugglemagne said, posing dramatically in his throne, “with this horrible rain I simply cannot entertain myself! There can be no croquet, no outdoor galas, and no hastily-produced reality TV shows! And since the rest of my court has been sent home, and you’re here to act as my guards…” He gestured with a flourish. “...that duty falls to you three!”

Mao Mao’s eye twitched. “So you called us here… in the middle of a massive rainstorm… to be your  _ jesters?!” _ He took a step towards the king, who immediately began to cower.

Badgerclops grabbed him by the neck of his cape and pulled him back. “Chill out, man! We just have to entertain ourselves and include the king, that’s all.”

“Yes! Quite right!” Snugglemagne agreed nervously.

Mao Mao groaned. “With all due respect your highness, this is a waste of our time!”

“Excuse us for just a moment, King Snugglemagne.” Badgerclops walked towards a side chamber, dragging Mao Mao with him. “Adorabat! Keep an eye on the king for us!”

“Roger!” She sounded excited.

“Dude, what’s your problem?”

“This is  _ ridiculous, _ Badgerclops! I’m a legendary hero! Not a babysitter!”

“C’mon man, just suck it up and help out! It’s one night! And besides, it’s your sheriff-ly duty to obey the king or whatever.”

Mao Mao crossed his arms. “Ugh, fine! But I’m not going to enjoy it!”

An idea came to Badgerclops. A really good idea. This might be the moment to do something he’d wanted to try with Mao Mao for ages. “Hey Mao Mao… what if you could go on a really cool adventure, keep the king safe,  _ and _ entertain him all at the same time?”

Mao Mao looked intrigued.

“I’ve got a great idea. Just trust me.”

They returned to the throne room to find Adorabat finishing up a magic trick. The king gasped with delight and clapped as she produced a bouquet of roses from thin air. She threw it to him and took a bow.

“Okay y’all,” Badgerclops said, “I’ve got a game for us to play. Have any of you ever played Dungeons & Dragons before?”

Mao Mao stared at him blankly.

“I have a dungeon!” the king offered, confused.

Adorabat had stars in her eyes. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh YES!!! I  _ LOVE _ that game!”

Badgerclops was surprised. “It’s… a lot of rules for someone your age, Adorabat. Who have you played with?”

“Well…” She looked embarrassed. “I might have… snuck out to play it with the sky pirates…”

“You WHAT?!” Mao Mao yelled, turning to her.

“I’m sorry! They’re just so good at imagining things! Even their food is imaginary!”

“Adorabat, we’ll talk about this later. Mao, run to the aerocycle and grab my bag, okay?”

Mao Mao nodded and strode away.

“I’m terribly sorry, Sheriff Badgerclops, but what exactly is… happening?”

“Oh, nothing major, I’m just saving the day. This game will keep you entertained for  _ hours, _ dude. It’s kinda like… you, Mao Mao, and Adorabat will make up your own characters with cool moves and stuff, and then I’ll narrate an adventure for you! You get to make choices about where you want to go and what you want to do, and I use some dice to help decide how it all goes.”

The king seemed uncertain.

“You get to come up with an outfit for your character~” Badgerclops said enticingly.

Snugglemagne leapt out of his throne. “Oh! Oh! Let’s begin at once!”

\---

A few minutes later they were gathered around a table. Badgerclops had printed off several blank character sheets from his arm. Mao Mao, Snugglemagne, and Adorabat were poring over the race and class selections. A platter of tiny bite-sized pizzas sat on the table between them.

“I say, this bard seems like a saucy fellow!” King Snugglemagne announced, raising the class guide for everyone to see.

“Ooh, excellent choice!” Badgerclops said. “What’s your instrument?”

“Keytar.” He replied without even a moment of hesitation.

“Atypical, but I like it!” Badgerclops jotted down some information on Snugglemagne’s character sheet and then handed it back to him. “Now you have to pick out a race.”

“I shall play the fighter,” Mao Mao announced, indicating a sheet of paper.

“Shocking,” Badgerclops said sarcastically. “Hand me your character sheet, and pick some moves.” He filled in the appropriate fields on Mao Mao’s sheet.

“Um, Badgerclops?” Adorabat said.

“Yeah dude?”

She motioned for him to lean down, then whispered into her ear. He looked surprised, then nodded. “You got it.” Another sheet printed from his arm.

“I’m playing a homebrew alchemist class!” Adorabat announced. “We’re gonna BLOW SOME STUFF UP!”

They continued setting up their characters, taking moves and choosing proficiencies. Badgerclops looked up at them brightly once everyone had finished. “Okay, why don’t we introduce our characters? Adorabat, would you mind starting?”

“Okay!” She straightened up her papers and cleared her throat. “I am Rirkarg Shrapnel, the gnoll alchemist! Once I was a maker of medicine for my people, but an evil duke and his army razed my homeland and killed all my friends! So I turned my skills to destruction, and seek to destroy him!”

Badgerclops nodded approvingly. “What’s the duke’s name?”

“Um,” Adorabat rubbed the back of her head, “I couldn’t come up with one.”

“Let’s just call him something generic for now, then. Duke… free… water. Duke Freewater.” He took down a note. “Mao Mao?”

“Can you…” Mao Mao looked embarrassed. “Can you come back to me later?”

“Okay, sure. Just let me know if you need any help, okay?”

“I don’t need help playing an imaginary game!!” He snapped.

“Right, okay, I got it. Jeez, dude. Snugglemagne?”

“Yes, very well.” Snugglemagne put on a smooth voice. “Yes, hello my adoring fans! I am the one, the only Gilwyn Goldheart! The most handsome elf in all of…” He turned to Badgerclops. “What are we calling this place?”

“The whole world is Holomyr, but we’re focusing on the Green Reef Coast.”

Snugglemagne nodded. “The most handsome elf in all of Holomyr! Or at least… I  _ was.” _ He placed the back of his hand to his head, dramatically. “You see, a horrible curse has befallen me, and cracked my beautiful face like a porcelain mask! I have nothing but my music now! So I wander the world in search of a way to undo this dreadful affliction!”

“That is SO COOL!” Adorabat said.

Snugglemagne looked bashful. “Oh, my! Thank you! I thought your character was excellent as well!” He beamed.

“Alright Mao Mao, whatcha got?”

Mao Mao shifted nervously in his seat. “Um, hello, everyone, I’m… Mercutio. I’m a human fighter.”

When Mao Mao didn’t continue, Badgerclops stepped in. “Mercutio, that’s a good name! Does he have a surname?”

“I, uh… It was…” Mao Mao fumbled for an answer. Coming up with one name had been hard enough. “Umm…”

“It’s a mysterious secret,” Adorabat chimed in, “that only his absolute closest companions may learn.”

“Yeah! It’s that!” Mao Mao looked relieved.

“I love it! Good job, Mao Mao.”

For a moment, Mao Mao’s eyes filled with excitement.

“Any backstory you want to share?”

Mao Mao nodded. “I was a… my village…” His face reddened as he stumbled over the words.

“Hey,” Badgerclops whispered to him, “you can talk about your character in third person if it’s easier.”

Some of the tension eased out of Mao Mao’s pose. He looked a bit more confident. “Mercutio showed promise as a hero early on, and there was lots of talk around his village about all the good he could do if he were trained properly. But the village didn’t have much, and going off to any sort of hero school seemed like an impossible dream to him. But after his years growing up there, helping everyone and being a hero at home, he earned their love and respect. So the people pooled their resources to send him to a heroic academy far across the continent. Now he patrols the world trying to make a name for himself and raise his village to prominence in return for their charity!” Mao Mao realized he had begun gesturing and gently folded his hands back in his lap, embarrassed.

“A world traveler! That’s fantastic, Mao Mao!” Badgerclops said.

“Oh yes,” King Snugglemagne agreed, “I simply love a village prodigy story!”

Mao Mao rubbed the back of his head, looking away. “Thanks…”

They worked out some details of how their relationships to each other and how they’d met. Gilwyn had hired Rirkarg to find a treatment that could fix his face, and the two of them had struck up an unlikely rapport even though Rirkarg failed to help him. Mercutio had come across the pair when he hitched a ride on a caravan of traveling merchants and found Gilwyn entertaining the salespeople with his songs in exchange for their transport.

Satisfied with their characters, Badgerclops stood up and dimmed the lights a little. “Okay,” he said, sitting back in his chair, “let me set the scene.”

“The three of you are sitting at an outdoor table in a busy park in one of the Green Reef Coast’s largest cities, Ymera. Mercutio tracked a lead to an informant with info on Duke Freewater. You intend to meet her here. Since you’re meeting under broad daylight, you’re hoping that the anonymity of the city will prevent any prying eyes; the crowds should be enough to leave you in total peace.”

“Rirkarg, you spot the informant first. She is a tall, strong Dragonborn with green scales and large black horns jutting back from her head. She approaches the table and sits down inconspicuously, as though she’s a part of your group. ‘Greetings, Mercutio.’ she says.”

Mao Mao considered. “I want to check her for weapons, but we’re trying not to draw attention…”

“You can roll a perception check to see if you spotted anything on her as she was sitting down, or sleight of hand to attempt to feel around for weapons without her noticing.”

“Well, my sleight of hand check would be better, wouldn’t it?”

Badgerclops glanced at his stats. “Yes, it is.”

“Now, sheriff,” King Snugglemagne chimed in, “you  _ would _ be groping an informant under the table, which is  _ most _ unbecoming of a hero. Plus, she looks like she could kick your ass.”

Mao Mao blushed. Adorabat giggled. “Okay, okay. Perception, then. Which one do I roll?”

“This one,” Badgerclops said, handing him a twenty-sided die. “It’s always the d20 for checks.”

Mao Mao turned the die over in his hand a few times, then rolled it across the table. It slid to a stop with a six facing upwards. “Six plus one gives me seven.”

Badgerclops shrugged. “You’ve got no idea if she’s packing or not. Nothing looks amiss.”

“Stupid dice,” Mao Mao grumbled.

“Please, Madam,” Snugglemagne said in his smooth character voice, “allow me to introduce myself. I am-”

“Oh my god, you’re Gilwyn Goldheart!” 

King Sugglemagne tugged at his collar, evidently already in character. “Well, it’s always nice to meet a fan, but could you perhaps keep it down? This meeting is supposed to be… clandestine. Cloak-and-dagger-ish.”

“She shakes her head, embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I just got a little excited. Let’s just get to the point. You’re looking for intel on Duke Freewater?’”

“Rirkarg nods. ‘He destroyed my home. I will have my revenge.’”

“‘Well, rumor has it that in a week, he’s launching a massive warship from Port Rejtal. They’re going to blow a hole straight through the Green Reef and open up a passage to the sea. It’ll increase his naval power tenfold, and the damage to the reef will be unrecoverable.’ You guys know that Rejtal is about five days’ travel south of where you are, so you need to get there quickly if you want to make it before the warship launches.”

“Rirkarg’s nostrils flare. They look determined. Also angry. ‘Freewater. He will be on this ship?’”

“The informant isn’t certain. She says she’s heard conflicting reports.”

“Is the Green Reef well known?” Mao Mao asked Badgerclops.

“Oh yeah, this entire coast is considered one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’d be a huge deal if it was destroyed, even partially.”

Mao Mao’s eyes sparked. “Mercutio slams his fist on the table. ‘If we save the reef from destruction, we’ll be renowned the world over!’”

“Rirkarg agrees. ‘And Duke Freewater must not gain any more military power than he already has.’”

“So, we’re taking a road trip to Rejtal?” Snugglemagne asked in his Gilwyn voice.

“Yeah!!” Adorabat yelled, out of character. “Road trip!” They laughed, and after a moment, Mao Mao joined in.

===

The next few hours of the game unfolded without a hitch. Every time Mao Mao acted in character, Badgerclops would encourage and praise him. Mao Mao grew invested in the game, talking in character and building out his story. He carried out an excellent philosophical discussion with Gilwyn about fame, Gilwyn having lost his and Mercutio seeking to grow his own. He came up with unexpected, exciting strategies in battle. He took a few failed rolls a little too personally, but Badgerclops decided that was a good sign. Mao Mao was empathizing with his character, and poking at the edges of some of his insecurities through Mercutio. Badgerclops had hoped that Mao Mao would react like this. Roleplaying might be good for him.

It felt like no time at all had passed before they came to the climactic scene. The party was split, with Gilwyn and Rirkarg fighting to place a bomb down in the hold while Mercutio faced the ship’s captain, alone. The boat had pulled out of the dock but was not yet at the reef. Duke Freewater was nowhere to be found, much to Rirkarg’s chagrin. Adorabat had cursed up a storm when they failed to find him, which Badgerclops reprimanded her for even though it was technically in character. He’d have to speak to Orangusnake later about his language at the table.

“Okay, Rirkarg, Gilwyn is holding off the guards. You have a moment to act. What do you do?”

Adorabat stood up on her chair. “I plant the bomb I made earlier right against the hull, then cover it up with some boxes so nobody will see it! This thing’s going down!”

“Roll sleight of hand.”

“Sixteen plus three! Nineteen!”

“You plant the bomb and hide it perfectly. Nobody is going to find it.”

“Good show!” Snugglemagne exclaimed. They high fived.

“Let’s jump back to Mercutio. Mercutio, you have the captain backed against the railing of the ship. He grins at you as he brandishes his cutlass. ‘You were a fool to come here, Mercutio, and a bigger fool for fighting me alone! You want to be a hero, hm? Then it’s too bad you’ll die here, weak and alone.’ You hear someone running up behind you, and before you can turn around…”

Badgerclops rolled a die. His eye shot open. “He MISSES?!”

The players cheered. “The whole ship rocks as an explosive rings out from the lower hull. You see the captain’s chief naval officer stumble past you, his sword narrowly missing your arm. He was thrown off by the blast. And because he missed, it is now your turn.”

“Come on Mao Mao, get him!” Adorabat called.

“Yes, sheriff! Destroy those men!”

“What was that about being alone, Captain Ulrich?!” Mao Mao roared, laughing as he hopped up onto his chair. “I’m stronger than you’ll ever be! And I have my friends to help me be even better!” Mao Mao grabbed a twenty-sided die from the table. “And then I stab my sword into the chief officer!”

“Roll to attack!”

Mao Mao released the die. It rolled to a stop. He leaned over the table to look at it.

“NATURAL TWENTY!!” He roared.

Adorabat screamed. Snugglemagne whistled and clapped.

“Alright Mercutio,” Badgerclops said, “describe it.”

“I switch to a dagger grip on my sword and as he stumbles to my side, I swing out without even looking. My sword goes straight up through his stomach to his head, impaling him. I keep my eyes on the captain the entire time.” Mao Mao acted out his description in dramatic fashion, illustrating the movement for everyone else to see.

“Grizzly!”

“Cool!!”

“Oh, how terribly violent of you!”

“I’m going to action surge for an additional attack.”

“What are you doing?”

“I want to pick up the chief officer and throw him at the captain, sending them both overboard.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Adorabat was thrilled.

“Normally that would be a strength contest, but… he’s dead, so he can’t resist being thrown. Roll a strength check, I guess.”

Trembling with excitement, Mao Mao picked up the die. He let it roll along the table, and then…

“ANOTHER TWENTY!!!!!” He stepped a foot up onto the table as everyone absolutely lost it.

“Oh my god! Okay! Okay hang on!” Badgerclops looked like he was ready to explode. “What’s it like, and do you say anything cool?”

“I switch grips on the sword again and hoist the entire chief officer over my head like a kebab, my massive muscles rippling under the sun. I plant one foot back, yell, and spear him at the captain like a javelin. My sword slides out of him as he shoots forward.”

Badgerclops looked up at Mao Mao. There was genuine excitement in his eyes. He was being open and vulnerable, and he was having fun. 

“The body collides with Captain Ulrich, knocking him over the bannister of the ship. He grapples with the corpse, trying to get a hand onto the side of the boat before he falls.”

“I say ‘Enjoy your new view of the reef.’”

“You hear fading screaming and then a splash as he plummets from the sinking ship and falls into the water below.”

Everyone around the table cheered. King Snugglemagne hopped out of his seat and grabbed Mao Mao off the table, spinning him around in a hug. “Good show, sheriff Mao Mao! Good show!!” He deposited Mao Mao, who was now blushing, back in his seat.

They played out a short epilogue to the adventure, Gilwyn and Rirkarg pulling up in a stolen lifeboat to rescue Mercutio from the sinking ship. They were technically felons now, since they’d destroyed the Duke’s ship and killed several people, so they fled as soon as the made land. But word spread of their heroism even though they weren’t there to tell it firsthand. Mercutio’s rise as a hero had begun.

===

“Oof, I’m EXHAUSTED!” Badgerclops said, slumping back in his chair. “Thanks for playing, guys.”

“Thank you for running this little experience, sheriff Badgerclops! It was most delightful.”

“Yeah Badgerclops, that was incredible!” Mao Mao laughed. 

Badgerclops smiled at him. Then suddenly, Mao Mao was hugging him.

“Thank you.”

It was a short hug. He blushed and walked away very quickly, taking some of the snack plates with him to the kitchen to clean them up.

“How do I stack up to the Sky Pirates?” Badgerclops asked Adorabat.

She considered. “Your worldbuilding is better, but Orangusnake’s character voices are incredible. And it’s more fun with a fourth player.”

Badgerclops thought for a moment. He counted on his fingers. “Huh. Too bad we don’t have any more friends.”

“But lots of enemies!”

Badgerclops chuckled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one breaks my record for longest MaoMaoctober daily fic! It is 3.2k words, all written in one day! The previous champion was chapter 7, adventure, at 2.2k words.
> 
> Huge thanks to my boyfriend for helping a ton with dialogue & scene ideas for this one.


	21. Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao and Badgerclops acquire a new heroic tool through totally legitimate means. It's definitely NOT stealing.

Mao Mao had always loved flying. When he was little, his favorite thing in the world was when his dad would pick him up and toss him in the air. He once flew with Shin Mao when he was older, strapped to his legendary armor and soaring through the air. He was hooked on the freedom, the exhilaration, and the majestic beauty of it.

His heroic toolkit had slowly grown to include a cape that doubled as a wingsuit, a grappling hook, and even a magical golden feather that was said to make its holder lighter. He'd gone bungee jumping and hot air ballooning several times. But true flight had eluded him.

It was always on his mind, of course. He took any quest he could that might win him the power of flight, no matter how dangerous or shady. Which is how he’d ended up dangling from a rope, clinging on for dear life, more than 100 meters above the ground.

“JUST PULL ME UP, BADGERCLOPS!” He yelled, wind whipping around his fur. He was swinging wildly in the air currents, a dead weight at the end of a dangling rope. Climbing it was nearly impossible with the way it jittered and swung. 

“I’m kinda busy, dude!” Badgerclops called back, shot after shot bursting from his blaster. “Just hang on for one second!”

Mao Mao clung to the rope desperately. He wondered for a moment if he would even like flying anymore after this.

“Alright, up you go!” Mao Mao felt the rope jerk upwards, shooting him towards the enormous airborne ship. Its huge gas-filled balloon curved away from him and up into the sky.

Mao Mao scrabbled onto the deck, claws digging into the wood as he threw himself over the bannister and onto flat ground. He laid there, breathing heavily for a moment. Then he looked around and saw the charred, concussed guards all around him.

“Wow.”

“I told you man, I was busy! You okay?”

Mao Mao laughed. “Of course I am. Now let’s get what we came here for!” He unsheathed his katana.

As they broke into the interior of the ship, Mao Mao couldn’t help but feel a little bad. The people on this vessel weren’t  _ exactly _ criminals. In fact, the ship was owned and operated by the official navy of the Great Plains Coalition State, and it was delivering some official government property. Which they were here to steal.

“Stop, pirates!” a guard yelled, aiming a pistol at Mao Mao. Badgerclops shot at a pipe above her, releasing a massive plume of steam which obscured her vision. Her shot rang out blindly, embedding itself in the heavy door above Mao Mao’s head.

“See? I told you dude! We’re pirates!” Badgerclops had said as much when they were first stowing away on the deck of the ship, waiting for it to take off from the port.

“For the last time, Badgerclops!” Mao Mao shouted, sprinting past him, “We are HEROES! This is just… a moment of weakness!”

“Psh,” Badgerclops scoffed. “You can justify anything, man.” He ran after Mao Mao.

They tore through the twisting corridors of the ship’s interior, avoiding some guards and incapacitating others. Mao Mao had told Badgerclops beforehand that they weren’t going to hurt any engineers or anything, only armed guards. So far they’d upheld that rule. But just before they could reach the cargo hold, they encountered trouble. 

The ship’s crew had anticipated their target. A thick swarm of guards blocked every entrance to the hold. Mao Mao suspected there were even more inside. An approach from the front was hopeless.

“In here!” Badgerclops shoved Mao Mao into a tiny side closet of the hall, shutting the door behind them. The space was cramped. They stood there, pressed together, hearts pounding in their ears as they strained to hear what the guards were doing. Had they been spotted pulling in here? Was a search about to begin?

After a tense minute, Mao Mao let out a sigh. “Now what?” he whispered.

“We have to take a hostage.”

“WHAT?!” Mao Mao barely kept his voice to a whisper. “Absolutely not!”

“Dude we’re already stealing government property from a sovereign nation, what’s one hostage? We’re not actually gonna hurt them.”

A gnarled, twisted knot of feelings squeezed at Mao Mao’s insides. He wanted what this ship was carrying. It was what he’d always dreamed of. But taking a hostage was  _ wrong, _ no matter how you sliced it. Of course, they could always try to fight the guards, but… There would be no way to overpower them all, at least not without using lethal force. They couldn’t exactly give up and leave, either; they were too far above the ground to escape the ship. 

Mao Mao’s thoughts were interrupted as Badgerclops clambered around him. “What are you-” Badgerclops’s stomach smacked him in the face. “What are you doing?!”

“Shh. I’m scanning.” Badgerclops craned his neck. He squinted, then grinned and looked down at Mao Mao. “Would you describe yourself as ‘air duct sized’?”

A few moments later, Mao Mao was crawling through a tight metal vent. The plan was… not exactly well-formed. He’d cut himself out just above their target, drop onto it, and then bust out and into the air with it. Meanwhile, Badgerclops would fight his way back up to the deck. They’d rendez-vous in the sky and fly off towards home, victorious.

Mao Mao could hear the crowd of guards as he crawled over them, carefully keeping the noise he made to a minimum. He could see the cargo hold now. A large vent gave him the perfect view. The target was right there in the center of the room, waiting for him. Calling to him. He counted the guards. Only four; maybe they weren’t trusting just anybody with this thing. 

There would be no choice but to go loud once his sword stuck through the metal. So he collected himself, readied his plan of attack, and then struck at the vent wall beside him. He dropped down onto one guard, taking him out in an instant, then grabbed his baton and flung it at another guard’s head. He ran to the back of the room and slammed a big red button. The cargo bay door began to open, cold air whipping in. There were shots coming towards him now. He leapt up to the ceiling and swung off a pipe, taking the guard who was aiming at him by surprise with the swift movement. He grabbed the guard’s pistol and laid out covering fire for himself as he sprinted to the center of the room. To his chance at flight.

The moment he mounted the aerocycle, he knew it was a match made in heaven. He chucked the pistol towards the last remaining guard and revved the engine, feeling the vehicle crackle to life beneath him. This was supposed to be a top secret delivery. One of the only aerocycles in the world. And now it was his.

He shot out of the cargo hold, laughing maniacally as the wind took him. Flying this thing was as natural as breathing. He soared in a wide arc, turning up and back towards the deck of the ship. He could see the blue flashes of Badgerclops’s laser lighting the wispy clouds. 

“Badgerclops!!” he called, zooming towards the deck. “Let’s go!”

Badgerclops’s eye widened as Mao Mao barrelled towards him. He frantically calculated trajectories. The aerocycle rushed at him. He jumped, and then… 

He landed with a thump behind Mao Mao. The vehicle wobbled, but remained flying. “Holy shit!” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Yeah, I know!” Mao Mao yelled, nodding. They rushed away into the sky, free from any pursuit on their newly-stolen aerocycle.

“We’re gonna have to do a lot of hero stuff to make up for this,” Badgerclops said.

Mao Mao just grinned to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was thinking about the narrative style that I used at the start of this fic and a couple of other recent ones, and I was like "Hm, I don't like this. Why don't I like this?" Then I realized that it's the ultimate violation of "show, don't tell"; I literally just have a narrator SAY "mao mao likes flying" instead of making Mao Mao remember the elation of flying with his father or something. It's a useful tool for short fics like these, but I think I'm going avoid it in my long-form work.


	22. Pirates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sky pirates prepare a big, delicious meal together. Orangusnake serves tea, and it is scalding.

Lord Orangusnake grinned at the full table in front of him, a dozen delicious smells all vying for his attention. What they had prepared today was nothing short of a feast. It was a meal the Sky Pirates heartily deserved after their many setbacks, heartbreaks, and failures. They'd all cooked it together, in the spirit of a potluck only all done in the same kitchen. 

Orangusnake cleared his throat. "May I say a few words?"

The others nodded.

"After our airship overturned and dumped out most of my crew, I'll admit I was a little disappointed about who was left."

Ratarang and Boss Hosstrich exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

"BUT," Lord Orangusnake continued, "I realize now how wrong I was to feel that way. You three are the most kind, dedicated, and talented criminals a guy could possibly hope to know. Ramaraffe, Ratarang, Boss Hosstrich… I'm proud to call you all not just my accomplices, but my family. Thank you for sticking with me, and for sharing this meal."

The other Sky Pirates applauded. Orangusnake blushed.

"Now I say," Boss Hosstrich exclaimed with a laugh, "there may be a gentleman in you yet!"

"Hey boss," Ratarang said from his high chair, "thanks for giving us a chance to work with you. We wasn't making any headway alone."

"Yeah," Ramaraffe chimed in, "you gave us a path to success! We're all here today because we worked together."

"You guys…" Orangusnake had tears in his eyes. "I'm so glad you're my friends!" He burst into tears.

"There there now, boy," Boss Hosstrich said. "There's plenty of time for crying after the meal. Why don't we compose ourselves and enjoy our dinner before it gets cold?"

"Yeah, come on boss! We all worked so hard on this food, we should eat it!"

Orangusnake nodded, wiping the happy tears from his eyes. "Yeah, let's eat!"

Soon they all had heaping plates of delicious food. It tasted so good after so many weeks of hunger. Sharing a meal like this was bliss. It was a perfect moment.

Then the wall behind Orangusnake vaporized.

"Alright, sky pirates!" Mao Mao yelled, bursting through the newly-blasted hole, "party's over!"

Boss Hosstrich froze, holding one of Ramaraffe's signature cookies just in front of his mouth. Ratarang began to cry.

"Hey, what the hell, man!" Badgerclops yelled at him. "You said I'd get to do the line this time!"

"Sidekicks don't get one-liners, Badgerclops."

"I am NOT your sidekick!"

They began to squabble. Adorabat laughed at the fight.

Orangusnake's eyes began to twitch. His grip tightened on his silverware, bending the metal. 

"We're gonna go hungry again," Ratarang wailed between sobs.

Ramaraffe leaned across the table to comfort him. "Hey, maybe they won't take all our food this time. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Ratarang sniffled.

Orangusnake's silverware clattered to the floor. Mao Mao and Badgerclops paused their fight, Badgerclops straddling Mao Mao on the floor with his blaster pointed at his face. They both turned to look at Lord Orangusnake as he stood up forcefully from his chair.

"Are. You. KIDDING ME?!" He roared, his voice hitting the sheriff's department trio like a brick wall. He stepped towards them, covering half their distance in one single, menacing stride. “What is WRONG with you?!” His chest heaved with furious breaths. “You just… bust down the wall while we’re eating dinner? A dinner we all worked very hard on and made together? And then you  _ point weapons at us?!” _

“Silence, criminal! You  _ stole _ that food!”

“We haven’t eaten in  _ weeks, _ you miserable asshole! Because the last time we managed to find some food, you beat us up and stole it!”

“Haha yeah,” Badgerclops laughed, “that day ruled.”

“How can you just  _ say _ that?!” Orangusnake shrieked. “You three are the WORST people on the entire planet!”

“Come on,” Mao Mao scoffed, “at least we’re not-”

Orangusnake pointed straight at him. “YOU do nothing but bully other people because you’re terrified of feeling like you’re not the coolest, strongest, smartest person in the room! Every time I see you you’re belittling Badgerclops! You’re a horrible role model and you shouldn’t be taking care of a child!”

“Oooohh, he got you!” Badgerclops said. He made a sizzling noise. “Yeah, get burned.”

“And YOU,” Orangusnake spat as he wheeled towards Badgerclops, “have less conviction in your entire body than I have in one fang! You ran away and joined us over an argument that would have taken TWO MINUTES of HEALTHY COMMUNICATION to solve! You were ready to KILL HIM over that! You’d sell any of your friends out in a nanosecond for a chance to avoid doing anything difficult!”

Badgerclops began to charge a shot. Mao Mao was reaching for his katana.

“Do you two even think for a SECOND about what kind of example you set for Adorabat? The kid’s a monster! She’s seven years old and she has bloodlust! That’s not normal, man!” He brandished his laser axe. “All the three of you do is fight and put each other down and kick us around so you can feel better about yourselves! You’re awful, horrible people who have deluded yourselves into believing that you’re heroes!” Orangusnake swung the broad side of his battleaxe in the middle of his diatribe, taking them by surprise and knocking them back towards the hole they’d blasted in through. “Get out of here and let us eat our dinner! The one we made together as a team! Because we take care of each other, and we don’t suck!” He stepped forward and slammed the stunned trio with the axe again, knocking them back outside.

“LEARN FROM THIS!” Lord Orangusnake shouted as he used the axe like a golf club and sent them flying off into the sky, the same way they’d done to the sky pirates countless times.

He stood there for a moment, silhouetted against the evening light filtering through the ragged opening in their ship. His shoulders heaved. He powered down his axe and slowly returned it to its holster. 

“I’m sorry, everyone,” he said, turning back towards the other pirates. “I think I may have ruined our dinner.” He hung his head.

“Are you kidding?!” Ratarang hollered, hopping out of his chair and slapping Orangusnake on the shin. “Boss, that was incredible!”

“I’ll say! That was a mighty fine display there, Lord Orangusnake!”

“Yeah, boss! You really stood up to them! They deserved it!”

Orangusnake blushed. “Oh, uh, really? I thought I maybe went too far.”

Boss Hosstrich shook his head. “I reckon they needed it. Now how about we finish our dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ACAB


	23. Slave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao has a certain kind of dream about Badgerclops. A very adult, very embarrassing dream. Now he has to clean up the evidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: this fic/chapter is pretty smutty despite not having any directly pictured sex in it. BDSM themes and mouth play stuff.

Mao Mao woke up feeling strange. He wasn't groggy exactly, but sort of… fuzzy? He didn't know what to make of it. He always woke up in top top shape, provided he'd had more than five hours of sleep. Judging by the amount of sun, he'd definitely hit that mark. So why was he feeling so weird?

He shifted in his sheets and his blood turned to ice. They were wet. Near his crotch.  _ Did I just wet the bed? _ The thought alone was devastating.

But that wasn't it. It wasn't that much liquid. A terrible, embarrassed tickle crept into his throat. He bashfully peeked under the sheets and confirmed his suspicion: he'd had a wet dream.

Mao Mao sighed and rubbed his eyes. He knew it happened from time to time, especially to people like him who didn't…  _ release _ very often. But his cheeks still filled with a rosy blush as he thought about what had happened. The sticky sheets would need a wash, of course. But it would definitely be suspicious if Mao Mao just washed his own. He could declare it laundry day, but Badgerclops had taken care of everyone's sheets just yesterday.

There was no option other than washing just his own. He'd move quickly and do it before the others woke up.

As he slipped out of bed and tiptoed silently towards their washing machine, the fuzzy feeling still plaguing his brain, he wondered what the dream had been about. An image flashed in his mind.

_ "You're mine now, kitten," Badgerclops said, locking a pink collar around Mao Mao's neck. "I'm going to claim every inch of you." His whisper lingered in Mao Mao's ear. _

Mao Mao's entire face turned red. He nearly dropped the bedding he'd bundled in his hands. He'd had  _ that _ kind of dream? About Badgerclops?!

It was too hard to think about. Too confusing. He ignored the feelings, stuffing them down into the furthest recesses of his mind. He pretended the strange churning in his stomach wasn't there. He loaded the cum-dampened sheets into the washer and started the cycle.

That gave him some relief. He was no longer holding the irrefutable physical proof of his humiliating dream. He had plausible deniability, the greatest blessing there was.

Except his fur was still slick and sticky.

He crept his way to the bathroom. A little soap and water and everything would be fine. He snuck out of the generator room and was almost to the bedroom door when a voice from the living room stopped him in his tracks.

"Dude," Badgerclops said, "what are you doing?" He spoke through a mouthful of cereal.

Mao Mao panicked. "O-oh, uh Badgerclops! I didn't see you there! Just… going about my morning! That's all!" He laughed nervously.

"But why-" Badgerclops interrupted himself, sniffing at the air. "Do you smell something weird? Kinda damp and musty?" He turned his twitching nose towards Mao Mao.

Mao Mao was mortified.  _ Oh god, _ he thought,  _ I smell like cum. _ He needed to get into the bathroom and clean himself off immediately. "It's my breath!" He replied, the best lie he could come up with in his panic. "Let me just go take care of that!" He practically sprinted the last few steps to the bathroom.

He washed his lower body thoroughly. He was furious at his luck. Why did Badgerclops have to catch him?! He rubbed the soapy water across his crotch, massaging it into the fur. His mind drifted, and for a moment he remembered:

_ Badgerclops slid his lubricated claws across Mao Mao's crotch. Mao Mao trembled, his touch-starved body desperately sensitive to Badgerclops's groping. "You can barely handle me touching you like this, huh Mao? You must really want me inside you." _

Mao Mao angrily pushed the dream away. This was ridiculous; Badgerclops didn't even talk that way! And besides, it wasn't like Mao Mao wanted… That! He turned the faucet as cold as it would go and let it wash over his lower body. Then he dried off and stepped outside of the bathroom.

Badgerclops snickered as Mao Mao walked back to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. "What?!" Mao Mao said defensively, turning to face him. He could feel his cheeks burning.

"Did you-" Badgerclops covered his mouth with his hand, suppressing a giggle- "did you wet the bed?!" He began to laugh as soon as he got the last word out.

"NO!!!" Mao Mao shouted reflexively, flailing his arms.

"Dude, come on." Badgerclops wiped away a tear. He counted on his fingers as he listed off the evidence: "You're washing your sheets, you were sneaking around, and I  _ heard _ you take a shower just now." 

“I’m an ADULT, Badgerclops! I didn’t wet my bed!”

“Hey, don’t worry about it buddy, we can get you a mattress protector.”

Mao Mao racked his brain for a convincing lie. “I was… bleeding!” he blurted.

Badgerclops immediately looked concerned. “Shit, are you okay? Let me see it!”

Mao Mao cringed internally at Badgerclops’s tone. He sounded so worried. It felt bad to play him like this. But the alternative was… unthinkable. “I’m fine. I just scratched myself a little while I was asleep. It’s already closed up. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay…” Badgerclops scratched the back of his head. “Sorry about the bedwetting jokes.”

“It’s alright.” Mao Mao wanted the conversation to be over as soon as possible. He darted to the kitchen, safe from Badgerclops’s prying eye. A heavy sigh of relief fell from his lips. There would be no existentially embarrassing dreams revealed today! Badgerclops would never know how Mao Mao felt. He’d never hear about the way Mao Mao had been helpless in his grasp,  _ how he’d taken complete control of Mao Mao’s body, how he’d… _

_ Arrgh! _ Mao Mao shook his head, clearing it. Breakfast! He was making breakfast. The knot of feelings in his stomach grew tighter.

A few minutes later he walked out, plate in hand, to the table. Badgerclops was still sitting there, of course. Mao Mao had thought about just eating in the kitchen, but Badgerclops was way too suspicious for that to fly. So he sat at the table. Dangerously close to him.

_ Has he always looked this buff? _ Mao Mao thought to himself as he ate. He couldn’t help it; it was too weird being near him after that dream. They managed to make some friendly small talk until Mao Mao finished his food. Mao Mao was about to excuse himself when Badgerclops stopped him.

“Hang on dude,” he said, reaching across the table, “you’ve got something on your face.” He placed his hand under Mao Mao’s chin and wiped a crumb from just above his lips with his thumb.

_ Badgerclops placed his hand under Mao Mao’s chin, cradling his head. He tilted Mao Mao’s face up towards him, looking into his eyes. “I’ve been waiting for this ever since I first saw that cute face.” He pressed his thumb against Mao Mao’s lips, slipping it into his mouth. The thick claw pressed down on his tongue, filling his mouth. Badgerclops pulled it out a moment later, saliva trailing from its tip. Mao Mao’s mouth hung open, his breathing hot and heavy. “You love this, don’t you, kitten?” Badgerclops pushed the index finger of his other hand in, prodding and exploring every inch of Mao Mao’s mouth. He slid it in and out, again and again, pressing on Mao Mao’s tongue, invading him like it was nothing- _

Mao Mao moaned. Loudly.

Badgerclops’s eye shot open. Mao Mao gasped, pulling back from Badgerclops’s touch and covering his mouth. He blushed all the way up to his ears. “I, I, uh…” He glanced around the room frantically. There had to be something! Some way out of this!

_ “You had a wet dream,” _ Badgerclops realized, a grin slowly spreading across his face. He started to laugh. “Holy shit, you had a sex dream about me!” He was shaking with laughter. “Wait wait wait, let me guess. Did I… did I call you ‘kitten’?”

Mao Mao’s blush deepened. He hid his face even though he knew it would give him away. He just didn’t want to be seen.

“I KNEW IT!” Badgerclops was overcome with the laughing fit. He hunched over the table, pounding its surface. Mao Mao was furious, and embarrassed, and he needed to leave immediately and never come back. 

“Fine! Shut up! I’m leaving!” He stormed out the door and hid himself behind their HQ, too embarrassed to be seen by anyone else ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen I wasn't about to write any interpretation of "slave" other than consensual BDSM, okay? this prompt is messy.


	24. Trickster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A string of connected thefts breaks out across Pure Heart Valley. Badgerclops and Mao Mao are on the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to G rated fics again! Have fun!

It was the third theft in a week, and it was even more brazen than the last two. Mao Mao stalked around the scene as Badgerclops and Adorabat placed down evidence markers. Sunlight streamed through the shattered glass of the skylight. Where there should have been a rich tapestry on the wall, there was now only empty space.

"Oh, it's absolutely horrible!" King Snugglemagne lamented, throwing his hand against his head dramatically. "My beautiful palace, vandalized! And my precious self-portrait, stolen!"

Badgerclops patted him on the back. "There there, it's not so- wait, SELF portrait? You weave?!"

The king turned his nose up indignantly. "I have  _ many _ talents, thank you very much!"

Mao Mao slammed his fist on a nearby table, startling both of them. "It doesn't make any sense!" He glared at the bare wall. "What's the message? The motive? Why steal a prized tapestry from the king?"

"Political unrest?" Adorabat suggested.

"Raw, visceral attraction to the king's hot body?" Badgerclops posited.

Mao Mao shot him a withering look. He addressed Adorabat's theory instead. "That's a good instinct Adorabat, but it doesn't have enough backing. There haven't been any recent upsets, and King Snugglemagne is very popular with the sweetypies right now."

"Perhaps it wasn't a sweetypie at all," the king said nervously.

Mao Mao's eyes widened. "That's it! These aren't local crimes at all! Someone is trying to send me a message!"

"Hey man," Badgerclops interrupted, "I know it's like, your hunch and all, but why does the message have to be for you and not me? I used to hang out with literal thieves, remember?"

Mao Mao shushed him. "Badgerclops please, don't be ridiculous. This case could only be meant to challenge me, the legendary Mao Mao! It'll be my greatest investigation yet!"

Badgerclops huffed, crossing his arms.

"Um, Mao Mao?" Adorabat asked. "How do you solve a mystery?"

Mao Mao grinned. "Just watch me, Adorabat. You're about to find out." He swept out of the room, cape billowing behind him. Adorabat flew in his wake, dazzled.

A bright flash painted the room in stark white contrast. Badgerclops remained behind, photographing the crime scene. He carefully examined each piece of evidence. As he glanced over the shards of skylight glass, he noticed something out of place.

\---

“The first thing you need to do is establish a motive,” Mao Mao explained. “Who would hate me enough to track down Pure Heart Valley and threaten the king?”

“The sky pirates?”

“It’s possible.” Mao Mao pinned a blurry photo of Orangusnake to the corkboard behind their office desk. Already up on the wall were newspaper clippings about the three thefts that had occurred, along with a map of the city. “But I suspect this crime is too high-minded for the sky pirates. This thief is playing games with us. Toying with us. And I can think of one tanuki who just  _ loves _ to play games.” He pinned a photo of himself with Tanya Keys to the board and pointed at her face.

“But I thought she liked you again after we saved Badgerclops!”

Mao Mao sighed. “Tanya is a complicated woman, Adorabat. She could be sending me a message. Or she might have turned on us again. But she has all the right motives for revenge!”

“Umm… does she?”

“Of course! I mean, we… um, she and the king… hm.” Mao Mao put his hand on his chin, thinking.

“What about a bad guy you and Badgerclops fought from before you came here?”

“That’s it! Adorabat, you’re a genius!” Mao Mao flung open a desk drawer and began to sort through a pile of mugshots clipped from newspapers. “Let’s see, the Honeybee Bandits were released a few weeks ago, Red-Eyes Rex got out last month, The Scorcher really had it out for us when we put her away…” He mumbled to himself as he pulled out potential suspects. A few moments later, they were all pinned to the board. 

“Okay, Adorabat. Let’s narrow the field.” Mao Mao went criminal by criminal, explaining their methods and how he and Badgerclops had caught them. He and Adorabat argued over motive, modus operandi, and possible alibis for every one. After an exhaustive process, they’d narrowed it down to a field of four suspects.

“And now for the  _ real _ work.” Mao Mao pulled a ball of red string from the desk.

“I thought you said it was time for work… why are you getting out your favorite ball of yarn?”

“Huh? Sorry Adorabat, what did you say? I was… distracted.” Mao Mao’s claws were out. There was string tangled between his fingers. His pupils quickly contracted again as he snapped out of it.

“ANYWAY, the board!” He turned his attention back to the suspects. “Hmm…” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Hmm,” Adorabat mimicked, copying the motion too.

\---

Badgerclops trailed the suspect carefully. It wasn’t easy work; he was huge compared to the sweetypies, and his fur pattern was very distinctive. Even Mail Mole could see him coming. So he’d requisitioned a car with tinted windows instead of following on foot. It was cramped, but effective. 

The target made a sharp turn into a park. Badgerclops swore. Had he been noticed? The car wouldn’t be able to follow in there. He had to make a choice: ditch the car and hoof it, or try to anticipate the suspect’s point of exit. Reluctantly, he parked. This was too close to over. He couldn’t risk losing the trail now. He’d make it work on foot, somehow. 

He slipped into the park. His suspect was nearly out of view, nothing more than a distant figure. But he couldn’t run; that would make his pursuit far too obvious. He followed at a distance, taking different paths and keeping trees between them. Sometimes he’d lose sight of the target, but never for long.

They exited the park. Badgerclops could feel it now. The thief’s stash was close. All he needed now was a chance.

\---

“My god, Adorabat.” Mao Mao looked shell-shocked. “It goes all the way to the top.”

A tangle of red string criss-crossed the corkboard, a baffling series of connections twisting and angling around one another. Many of them converged to a newly-added picture of King Snugglemagne, a glamorous headshot adorned with his signature.

“It all makes sense now…” Mao Mao stepped back, awed at his own conclusion.

“Umm, can you please explain it one more time?”

Mao Mao sighed. “Adorabat, please. It’s very simple. King Snugglemagne faked the theft of his own self-portrait, along with the two earlier burglaries, because he’s under immense blackmail pressure from Red-Eye.” He traced his claw along the connecting string. “The details in these articles line up exactly with Falkestrasse’s Ten Behaviors of the Blackmailed-” he pointed to a sheet of paper that looked like it had been ripped from a textbook. “But the king doesn’t know that Red-Eye is actually Tanya Keys disguised as Red-Eye Rex. She’s scamming him for his fortune with a fake blackmail scheme. Of course, the king himself set up the blackmail as part of a-”

Before he could continue, Badgerclops kicked the front door open. “Yo, Mao Mao! Get the jail cell open!”

“Badgerclops?! What are you-”

“LET ME GO! I’LL KILL YOU ALL! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M CAPABLE OF!” Pinky wriggled fruitlessly in Badgerclops’s mechanical grasp, screaming at all three members of the sheriff’s department.

Mao Mao laughed. “Hah, I guess the mystery was too hard for you, huh Badgerclops? Back to arresting Pinky for petty crimes again?” He swung the jail cell open. “What was it this time?” He asked Pinky. “Steal another ice cream?”

Pinky spat at him. “I want my lawyer! It’s my tapestry! I already had it!”

“Tapestry?”

Badgerclops slammed the cell door shut and locked it. “Yeah Mao Mao, tapestry! The big thing that got stolen? Remember?”

“No, that’s… that’s not possible, Badgerclops!” Mao Mao laughed nervously. “It can’t be Pinky! I mean, look at the evidence!” He gestured to the unintelligible mass of string and paper pinned to the wall. “I figured it all out!”

“It’s actually very simple,” Adorabat explained. “You see-”

Badgerclops cut her off. “Adorabat, do you want to learn how to solve a mystery?”

She nodded.

“Step one, you review the evidence. You know, the ACTUAL evidence?” He dropped a manila folder on the table, fanning out an array of photographs from it. The crime scene was meticulously documented. “Before you go making any assumptions about how the crime is really all about you-” he glared pointedly at Mao Mao- “you need to examine everything thoroughly.” Badgerclops pulled out a photo and showed Adorabat. “This sliver of glass had a tiny bit of blood on it. AND: pink fur.”

Adorabat gasped.

“BEING PINK ISN’T A CRIME!” Pinky hollered from the jail cell.

“Dude shut up, I’m trying to have a parlor scene here!” Badgerclops walked over to the cage and pulled a tarp down over it, muffling the sound. “Ahem. Step two is to find a suspect. Obviously the pink fur was a major clue. Now it could be a red herring, laid by a clever criminal to misdirect us. But in this case, we already have the perfect perp.” He gestured towards the covered jail cell. “Pinky’s fur matches, he has the motive of being a generally horrible person, and he’s always been kinda weirdly into the king. It makes sense that he’d steal the tapestry.”

“Next you need to track your suspect down and see what you can find out about them. This part’s really important, even if you have the perfect suspect, because it might be a frame job. Now, Pinky is easy to find thanks to the general unpleasantness he inspires, so I was able to get on his trail within a few minutes. I tailed him for about an hour before he went for his stash. He slipped into a closed-up storefront, and when I followed him I found THIS!”

Badgerclops slapped a photo down on the table. What it depicted could only be described as a shrine. The tapestry hung proudly from a wall, flanked by candles and various Snugglemagne memorabilia. “Half of this stuff was filed as stolen goods, and you can see the two thefts from earlier this week in there too.” Badgerclops pointed out a couple of the objects. “Anyway, I secured the whole scene and took Pinky into custody. And now we’re here.” He folded his hands pleasantly.

Adorabat was starstruck.

Mao Mao cleared his throat. “Badgerclops, I… I’m impressed. That’s some top notch detective work.”

“But you had fun with your string, right?”

Mao Mao crossed his arms and fumed. “I was trying to be nice.”

Badgerclops patted him on the head. “I know. But you were kind of a jerk earlier, so…” Badgerclops stuck his tongue out. “I caught the bad guy and you didn’t! Ha ha!”

Mao Mao wanted to punch him, but he knew Badgerclops was right to gloat. He’d messed this one up pretty bad. “Yeah yeah, keep going. You were right and smart, I’m a dumb asshole, blah blah blah.”

Badgerclops’s eye softened. “You’re not dumb, Mao Mao. You just got carried away.” He kissed him on the forehead. Mao Mao blushed all the way up to his ears.

“You  _ are _ an asshole though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao: *sees a crime*  
Mao Mao: hm. how can I make this about me


	25. Vengeance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao wishes he could get back at his dad somehow. Badgerclops helps him think through those feelings.

“Okay, but what do you  _ want _ from it?” Badgerclops asked. He was seated next to Mao Mao on a fallen log in the forest. They’d gone for a walk amongst the trees at Badgerclops’s suggestion. It was coming to the end of fall; most of the trees had already given up their golden leaves to the wind, and there was a strong chill in the air. 

Mao Mao wore a heathered dark grey peacoat, his signature cape replaced with a bright red scarf. Badgerclops had opted for a white wool sweater. Muted brown and orange leaves coated the forest floor.

“I want revenge, Badgerclops!” Mao Mao made a dramatic fist with his gloved hand. “After everything he put me through, I want him to suffer!”

Badgerclops sighed. He gently uncurled Mao Mao’s fist and held his now-open hand. “Look, Mao Mao… your dad really sucks, don’t get me wrong. But chasing after him trying to get revenge isn’t going to make you feel better.”

Mao Mao looked at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Revenge is the best! Nothing feels better than destroying the people who wronged you!”

“So we’re going to beat your dad up?” Badgerclops cracked a smile.

“No! I mean, he deserves it, but… ugh!” Mao Mao turned away. “I hate this.”

Badgerclops dropped Mao Mao’s hand and placed an arm around his shoulders instead. “It’s alright, Mao Mao. We can talk about it.”

Mao Mao looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. “I just don’t get it. I want to hurt him. It makes me furious that he gets to go about his life without a care in the world, while I’m still struggling every day. I want… consequences! I want justice!” He shifted uneasily on the log and looked back at Badgerclops. “But whenever I think about actually doing something about it, I just get sick to my stomach.”

“That’s why I was asking what you want.”

“I guess I don’t know.” Mao Mao considered. “I want him out of my head. I hate thinking about him all the time.”

Badgerclops nodded. “But making him hurt won’t achieve that?”

“I… think not.” Mao Mao shivered, suddenly feeling the cold in the damp air. Badgerclops drew him in closer.

“You want to move on. That’s good, Mao! We can work on that.”

“But… how?”

“Well,” Badgerclops scratched his nose. “You could talk to him.”

“He doesn’t deserve it.”

“No, he doesn’t. But you do.”

A small gust of wind played at the leaves on the ground. Mao Mao stayed silent, thinking. What Badgerclops had just said felt very important.

“You deserve the closure, if that’s what you want. Tell him that he was a shitty father, and that he should feel horrible for what he did. Tell him that once you left, you found a better life and you got the help you needed to recover. Wish him the best in getting better too, and then come back home and keep living well without his stupid face ruining your day.”

“But if I talk to him, don’t I have to… forgive him? Isn’t that what people do?”

Badgerclops shook his head. “No way, dude. You  _ should _ be mad as hell at him. He doesn’t deserve to be absolved of everything he did to you. But it seems like part of why you can’t move on yet is because you have things you want to say to him. You deserve the chance to tell him how you feel.”

“He might ask me to forgive him.” Mao Mao sounded nervous.

“Mao Mao, your forgiveness is something he has to earn. He hurt you, dude. If he wants you to say it’s okay, he needs to work for it. And if you don’t feel like he’s earned it, you don’t have to forgive him! Not now, and not ever.”

Relief washed over Mao Mao. He didn’t even realize he’d been carrying that weight. There was no obligation to forgive Shin Mao for abusing him. If he wanted, he could get everything off his mind and walk away feeling finished with his father for real.

He hugged Badgerclops. “Thank you. I’ll talk to Blue about it at our next session.” Mao Mao kept the hug going. “You’re a really good boyfriend, Badgerclops.”

“Aww, thanks, man. I just want you to be happy, y’know?” He kissed Mao Mao gently.

“I’m really lucky I had someone like you to help me recover.”

“Hey… I couldn’t have done it if you didn’t let me in and give me the chance to help. You’re really brave, Mao.”

Mao Mao blushed. The quiet fall leaves rustled around them. He leaned himself into Badgerclops’s big, warm body. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mao Mao!” Badgerclops nuzzled the top of Mao Mao’s head.

They sat and quietly watched the light begin to fade from the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this was too difficult a subject choice for a daily fic. I really didn't want to bungle Mao Mao talking about his abuse this far along in his recovery cycle, so I took a really long time to write each sentence... which meant it had to be a short one lol. I really want to explore the recovery process for Mao Mao specifically with regard to his upbringing, but it takes a lot of research to make sure I'm writing about things that are actually good for abuse survivors. Hopefully I can dig in more during a larger fic.


	26. Melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adorabat's class has a concert, and she's going to play a solo! Badgerclops and Mao Mao wait in the audience, but Mao Mao has some personal feelings to grapple with before he can enjoy the show.

“How long is this going to take?” Mao Mao groaned, shuffling awkwardly towards the middle of the row of seats.

“I don’t know,” Badgerclops responded, “half an hour?” He squeezed past each chair, totally unable to keep up with Mao Mao. “I’m really sick of everything being sweetypie-sized,” he muttered.

They took their seats as the tiny theater slowly filled up with people. There were no curtains in front of the stage. An arrangement of folding chairs on risers filled much of the performing space, and a black grand piano took up what was left. Various instruments were strewn around the stage, unaccompanied. 

It seemed like everybody in the room had a video camera. Mao Mao grew nervous. “Badgerclops, do you think we should have brought a camera?”

Badgerclops pointed at his face. “Cybernetic eye, remember?”

Mao Mao felt silly for asking. Why was he even nervous? It was just a dumb recital.

The sweetypie next to Badgerclops leaned over to talk to him. “Hi, I’m Chubbums’s father.” He shook Badgerclops’s hand. “Which one is yours?”

“Oh, we’re not-” Mao Mao began.

“Adorabat,” Badgerclops said, cutting him off.

“Oh, of course!” The older frog laughed. “I thought I recognized you two. Our celebrity sheriffs! It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Mao Mao glanced around the room while Badgerclops talked. Everywhere he looked, there were parents eager to watch their kids perform. They were all so thrilled to be there. He felt an intense pang of jealousy. He could  _ see _ himself on that stage, searching the audience for his dad and finding nothing but an empty seat.

Immediately the jealousy turned to guilt. He’d been so reluctant to come here. When Adorabat first told them about the recital, Mao Mao had said no and told her to bring her real family. She’d started crying of course, and Badgerclops had had to smooth things over by promising her they’d be there. She got so excited, she did all of her practice in secret so they wouldn’t hear the piece before tonight. Apparently she had a solo, but that was all they knew.

After the horrible upbringing his father gave him, he wanted to be there for Adorabat. He knew that much. But he was afraid that if he came here and watched her play, he’d… ruin it somehow. He’d already gotten jealous of a bunch of skewl kids because their parents were here to watch. If he had stayed away, he could have avoided that bad feeling. In the moment that Adorabat had asked them to be here, that selfish instinct led Mao Mao to tell her no. He wanted to be a good parent to her, but if he knew that something would be hard, his brain just made it even harder. It was shameful and embarrassing, but it was the truth. He’d put his own ease and comfort over Adorabat’s happiness.

Badgerclops shook his shoulder. “Mao. Hey! It’s almost time, dude. Stop spacing out!”

Mao Mao shook his head, clearing it. “Right! Flute time!” He smiled, but it wasn’t genuine. He wished he could be a better dad. He hated himself for being so weak.

The lights dimmed. Adorabat’s teacher walked out onto the stage. “Thank you everyone for coming to our spring concert! Please take your seats. Your kids have worked very hard all year long to prepare these pieces, so I hope you’ve all got your camcorders!”

A chorus of beeps rang from the audience as red lights blinked on everywhere.

“Well then! I guess we’re rolling. Please welcome to the stage… your performers!”

The parents applauded as a line of skewl kids appeared from stage left. They filed past the piano to the seats on the risers. Mao Mao spotted Adorabat, but she was focused on getting to her seat. His heart began to pound. Was he… nervous? For her? He gripped Badgerclops’s arm.

Adorabat settled in her seat and picked up her flute. She practiced fingerings nervously for a moment, then finally looked out over the audience. She looked scared.

_ We’re here! _ Mao Mao thought as her eyes swept the room.  _ Right here! _

But somehow she missed him and Badgerclops. Sad and panicked, she began to search the audience again.

Mao Mao wanted to leap out of his seat and scream to her.  _ We’re here, Adorabat! I’m right here! _ He was shouting in his mind. His whole body was tense. Finally he gave up on proper decorum and raised his red-gloved hand, waving it at her.

Adorabat’s eyes lit up. She grinned at him, waving back. Her grip on the flute grew stronger with her renewed confidence.

Something welled up inside Mao Mao’s chest. It was almost like he was choking. He didn’t understand.

The music began. The skewl teacher, now seated at the piano, lead the students in the piece. It was fumbling and squeaky, but they  _ were _ just kids after all. He kept his eyes focused like lasers on Adorabat the entire time. The music swelled, quieted, and then…

Adorabat began to play her solo. The notes rang out clean and true through the theater. She looked completely focused. The sweet, simple melody was wonderful. Adorabat was doing such a good job.

Mao Mao realized with shock that he was crying. He was just so proud of Adorabat for all the work she put into learning this solo. He was so happy that she had wanted to share it with him and Badgerclops even though they weren’t her real parents. Most of all, he was glad that Badgerclops had made him come and pushed him past his selfish attempts to escape. The look on Adorabat’s face when she spotted them, the way she was playing, the sweet and clean music… he only got to experience it because he’d pushed himself to show up for her like his father never did.

The tears poured down his face as she finished her solo and looked up at them excitedly. He applauded silently, letting the rest of her classmates play. As far as he was concerned, the show was already over.

\---

They hugged Adorabat tightly outside in the night air after the concert. She was talking nonstop. “You came!! I saw you before I started playing! Did you watch me? Was I good??”

“You were amazing, dude!” Badgerclops said, laughing. “I had no idea you were so good at the flute, ‘cause you wouldn’t let us hear you practice!”

Adorabat grinned.

“Adorabat…” Mao Mao began. Instantly he had her full attention. “I am SO proud of you!” He hugged her tighter. “We were watching the whole time. You did amazing!”

Adorabat looked like she was going to explode with joy.

“How about we go get some ice cream to celebrate?” Badgerclops asked.

“Yes please!!” Adorabat shot down the road towards their favorite ice cream parlor, not even waiting for Badgerclops and Mao Mao to catch up.

Badgerclops wrapped an arm around Mao Mao’s shoulders as they walked, surprising him. “You make a good dad, Mao Mao.”

Mao Mao was shocked. “You… picked up on that?” He blushed.

“Yeah man, I know you way too well to miss something like that.” He patted Mao Mao on the shoulder. “Adorabat was really glad you came.”

“Yeah…” Mao Mao smiled to himself. “Yeah, she was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little disorganized. I had an idea but it really could have used a few more passes to get it right. Pre-recovery Mao Mao is really hard to write for me; he has too many problems for me to explain them with anything other than a wall of text lmao


	27. Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camille and Honey uncover a terrible, universe-altering fact in their research.

Deep in the dark hours of the night, hidden away down twisting corridors in a large and imposing laboratory, Camille cackled to herself as she swirled a fluorescent green liquid into a glass potion flask. The liquid sloshed around, mixing with what was already inside to produce a fizzing, bubbling fluid. Camille held the large flask reverently between her hands. She took a long swig of the potion…

_ Delicious. _

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, grinning as she walked back towards Honey’s experimental setup. “You were right about brewing our own soda, dearie! It’s delicious!”

Honey nodded, smiling. Painted on the ground in front of her was a large and complicated magical sigil. White candles burned, placed at several key points around the sigil. A heavy feeling clung to the air in the room.

“Is the ritual prepared?” Camille asked.

Honey nodded. She placed a pair of tinted safety goggles over her eyes.

Camille nervously checked the various magical and scientific books strewn about the room. An array of video cameras hooked to a computer were recording the room from several different angles. They were going to get hard data on this phenomenon no matter what. This would be groundbreaking research.

“Let’s see…” Camille compared the sigil painted on the floor to a smaller version, which was handwritten on parchment paper. “Randomness, summoning, bindings for the energy, it looks like it’s all here…” She folded the paper up, satisfied. “Get ready, dearie!”

The high speed cameras were recording. Camille threw a handful of iron bearings up over the sigil, which scattered throughout its circle. The rune crackled with energy.

“Hit it!”

Honey shocked the sigil with a blast of magic, exciting the iron fillings and vibrating them along the floor. The painted lines glowed. A rising crackle of energy filled the room, then disappeared in a blast of wind accompanied by a flash of bright white. Camille stared through her safety goggles at the center of the ritual stage, where a figure had appeared.

“And then I said-” Mao Mao froze, mid-sentence. He was standing in the center of the sigil. Confused, he glanced around the room, eyes eventually lighting on Honey and Camille. He squinted. “Did you two just… teleport me?”

“Oh, we’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience!” Camille said graciously, taking Mao Mao’s hand and leading him from the ritual circle before he could ask any questions. “We’re just working on a little teleportation spell and accidentally dialed the wrong number! Won’t happen again!” She bustled him to the laboratory door, which lead back outside. “Feel free to use our phone to call Badgerclops and have him pick you up on the aerocycle, goodnight dearie!”

Mao Mao stared ahead confusedly as she retreated back into the lab behind him.

“THE SHERIFF!” Camille yelled as she returned to the experiment room. Honey jumped up and down with excitement at Camille’s exclamation. “Of course it was him!!” She eagerly recorded the result in her notebook. 

This was a promising start to what would be an existentially important series of tests. For this experiment, Camille and Honey had meticulously combined a summoning ritual with a careful assortment of randomness-related runes to create a sigil which should, according to theory, have been capable of summoning anyone at random from their world.

And the very first person that it had chosen was Mao Mao.

“It’s always him!” Camille hooted. “Somehow that cat is at the center of something… cosmic.”

Honey indicated the computer. They watched the footage back, checking everything in slow motion. The iron bearings had scattered across the floor, charging the sigil with energy to provide randomness to the spell. The paint never smudged, so it didn’t appear that the spell had become biased. Every sign indicated that their experiment had been perfectly, truly random.

“Reset and try again?” Camille asked.

Honey nodded, bending to pick some of the iron pieces off the floor.

“Ever since he arrived, everything seems to revolve around that Mao Mao. If we can prove that it actually does, we’ll change the face of science!” She cackled.

Honey handed her the iron fillings, unamused. That had been their mission statement this whole month. It didn’t need repeating.

Camille tossed the iron pieces.

“Hit it!”

The sigil flashed again.

“Woah, what?!” Badgerclops gasped, looking wildly around the room. Just a moment ago, he had been on the aerocycle headed towards Mao Mao. Now he was cowering in a dark room with a bunch of cameras pointed at him.

“BADGERCLOPS?!” Camille exclaimed. She quickly regained her neutral scientific attitude. “You better run this way and tell Mao Mao to call the aerocycle before it crashes!” She pointed him down the hall to where she had left Mao Mao.

“We’ll talk about this later Honey!” He called over his shoulder as he sprinted down the hall.

“Unbelievable! Badgerclops!” She scribbled some calculations in her notebook. The odds of getting the two of them one after the other in their purely random portal were astronomically low. Of course, for proof of something like this, they’d need a much wider sample set than just two. But this was a promising start.

The next pull was a surprise: a short, friendly blue jay neither of them had ever met before. She introduced herself as a couples therapist from a few towns over. Camille and Honey exchanged a glance. Was this their first anomaly?

“Dear,” Camille asked carefully, “do you know a cat named Mao Mao?”

She looked at them with confusion. “No, I don’t think so. I haven’t heard of him.”

_ Fascinating. _ “Well, so sorry about this little accident, we’ll have a good look at these runes and figure out what went wrong, won’t happen again!” She helped the counselor to the exit, chatting like it had been a mistake. It was critical to the experiment that they keep the teleported people from recognizing what exactly they were doing. Every source of bias had to be avoided.

“Well, that shakes things up! An outlier! That nice blue jay hadn’t even heard of Mao Mao!” She jotted some features of the result down in a table. “So she had no relation to him. Honey, what are the odds of this assuming a purely random sample?”

Honey pointed at a large wall clock which hung imposingly on the wall above them. 

“Oh, goodness!” Camille threw her hands to her head. “Is it really that time?” She threw off her lab cloak. “How about we get some dinner and call it a night?”

Honey licked her lips and followed Camille out towards the exit of their lab. This had been a good start, but it was responsible to wait until the morning to continue. For now, Honey was looking forward to dinner. But as they approached the front door, they heard crying.

Camille cautiously peeked her head around the corner. It was Mao Mao and Badgerclops; between them sat the couples counselor, who appeared to be talking. Camille was gobsmacked. Somehow, this person who didn’t even know Mao Mao had become wrapped up in this little segment of his life. Everything that could happen by chance seemed to revolve around Mao Mao.

They waited until the crying had stopped to approach. Mao Mao looked at them, surprised.

“Are you alright, dears?” Camille asked.

Mao Mao wiped at his face. “We just had a good talk, that’s all. We’re going to head home now.”

“Oh my, were you two in an argument?” Camille probed.

“We were, earlier today,” Badgerclops said. “It got bad and Mao Mao was so mad that he left, until you teleported him back here. Then you got me here too and we started fighting again. But that nice marriage counselor lady just helped us talk it out rationally with each other.”

“I see! Well, have a nice night, you two! We’re off to dinner!” Camille slumped down against their wall as the Aerocycle swerved into the night sky. “I can’t believe it! We summon three people completely at random from the entire population of the world, and it gives Mao Mao a little adventure with a lesson at the end? How can that be possible?!”

Honey patted her on the shoulder. They could discuss the implications later, over mozzarella sticks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you imagine someone coming into your life with as much drama as Mao Mao and then scientifically proving that your world literally revolves around him
> 
> Thanks to my boyfriend for figuring out what experiment Honey and Camille could do to prove that the world revolves around Mao Mao!


	28. Pastry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao, Badgerclops, and Adorabat have way too many berries! There's only one recipe for this job: cobbler!

Mao Mao stalked back and forth in front of the oven, wringing his gloved hands nervously. The timer displayed five minutes remaining. Caramelizing sugars and stewing berries wafted through the air. He watched the surface of the cobbler carefully. There would be no burning today; he was ready to snatch his golden-brown prize away from the heat at the first sign of trouble.

"Smells good, dude!" Badgerclops called from the living room couch, extending his robo-arm into the kitchen to give Mao Mao a thumbs up.

It had been Badgerclops's idea to make it. They'd gone around picking berries with Adorabat for hours yesterday and ended up with way more than they knew what to do with. Mao Mao had been pulling out some jars, preparing to make jam, when Badgerclops suggested it. 

_ "I can't just MAKE a cobbler!" Mao Mao exclaimed incredulously. "It goes against my entire family code!" _

_ Badgerclops pinched his nose. "You mean the code that we already agreed was stupid? The one that you broke last time there was cobbler around?" _

_ Mao Mao slammed his palm against the counter, rattling the jam jars. "That was a mistake! I was foolish to disobey the code, and weak to give in to my desire. I'm not going to do it again!" _

_ "Even though it's your favorite food in the world, and it would make you happy to eat it?" _

_ "Yes, Badgerclops! That's precisely what makes my denial so tragic and heroic!" He was posing as if for a monumental statue. Badgerclops suspected he didn't even realize he was doing it. _

_ "How about you let me see that page of the code?" Badgerclops asked. _

_ "What good will that do? You've already refused to follow it." _

_ Badgerclops rolled his eyes. "Just do it, dude." _

_ Mao Mao begrudgingly flipped the book to the entry about cobbler. It simply read "a true hero may never eat a cobbler of any kind; it is a pastry unbecoming of a paragon of justice." _

_ "Who added this part?" Badgerclops asked. _

Mao Mao felt the resentment and fury build in his chest again. Shin Mao had added that rule. Recently. In fact, it hadn't even been in the book until the day when… when… 

His grip tightened on the wooden spoon he held. He'd saved up his miniscule allowance for weeks. He'd gone into town all alone, bought a beautiful red berry cobbler fresh from the baker. And when he brought it home, eager to share it with his sisters, Shin Mao menaced over him and told him he'd have to get rid of it. Because Mao Mao couldn't be allowed to have something that made him so happy.

He cringed as the timer went off, shaking him from his thoughts. He rushed the oven open and peeked at the cobbler. Perfect golden-brown crust and bubbling berries stared back at him. He carefully slipped the tin out of the heat and placed it on the stovetop to cool.

The realization that his father had created the no cobbler rule purely to hurt him had sent Mao Mao's entire conception of his childhood spiraling. All this time, he’d thought of Shin Mao as simply an overburdened hero; too busy training Mao Mao’s sisters and fighting off bad guys to pay attention to him. Until now he’d rationalized all of the curt dismissals, the belittlement, and the stinging indifference as things he’d deserved. He was a failure, so his father treated him like one. Shin Mao was busy. Shin Mao was a real hero.

But that understanding had now cracked. The no cobbler rule was just… personal. It was spiteful, hateful, even cruel. Shin Mao had added it to the book for no reason other than to make Mao Mao miserable. What kind of hero would do that?

The freshly-baked pastry was a sight to behold. He’d worked hard to make it just right. The beautiful, flaky crust called to him. He’d disregarded the Hero’s Code and made a cobbler for himself. And he was happy about it. That book had its uses, with its impressive bestiary and centuries of moral philosophical thought, but it was also a weapon that had been used against him in his past.

_ Hm, _ he thought as he carefully plated a slice of the cobbler,  _ maybe I’ll just revise that page. For the sake of future generations of heroes. _ A smile spread across his face.  _ I write the rules now. _

“Badgerclops! Adorabat! It’s cobbler time!” He carried the plates to the dining table, where Badgerclops and Adorabat were waiting.

“Wow, Mao Mao!” Adorabat said. “It smells really good!”

“Yeah man,” Badgerclops agreed, salivating. “Let’s eat already.”

Mao Mao grinned proudly. “Dig in!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As soon as the no-cobbler rule backstory was explained in Sugar Berry Fever, I was 100% instantly convinced that it was added just to punish Mao Mao. It has literally no other reason for being there, and if it was already in the book then Mao Mao probably would have known about it since he was so obsessed with hero stuff. It has to just be a dick move to make him feel bad.


	29. Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Badgerclops's birthday, and Mao Mao brings him a present.

Badgerclops hummed quietly to himself as he prepared dinner for everyone. He crushed a clove of garlic with the broad side of his knife, then pulled away the papery skin. It was a nice size and color. The fresh vegetables were good here in Pure Heart. 

He roughly chopped the garlic, adding it to the substantial pile of cloves he'd already prepped. Careful not to lose any, he scraped the entire thing into a saucepot. It hissed slightly as it touched the shimmering olive oil. The smell of it bloomed through the kitchen.

Badgerclops sighed contentedly. He could have done all of that in a fraction of the time if he'd used his robo-arm, of course. He had an infinite array of gadgets available to him for peeling, chopping, and mixing. But cooking wasn't just about results for him anymore; he'd come to appreciate the process itself as something peaceful. Meditative.

He switched the burner on beneath a large pot of generously salted water. The flames ignited with a click. There were no cookbooks out in the kitchen; Badgerclops knew this recipe by heart. Simple and delicious, every time. He flung a large pinch of oregano into the sauce pot. Seasoning the oil before building up the sauce was one of his best tricks for packing in flavor. He let his mind wander as he tossed the cherry tomatoes with salt, pepper, and fresh lemon juice.

Today had been a good birthday, all things considered. It passed quietly, like all of his birthdays. Adorabat made a fuss, of course; she'd presented him with a special birthday card she made herself, covered in drawings of him doing cool things from their adventures. She'd even written his name on the envelope in cursive.

The tomatoes smacked against the bottom of the pot as they dropped in, splattering oil against its walls. Badgerclops covered the whole thing to steam. Once the tomatoes softened a bit, he would go back in with a wooden spoon and smash them. Sharing this meal with Mao Mao and Adorabat would be a nice end to his day.

With the tomatoes smashed and the sauce cooking down, Badgerclops turned towards the door. There was nothing left to do but wait, so he planned to ask Adorabat to set the table. But someone was standing in the doorway.

“Oh!” Badgerclops said, surprised. “Hey Mao Mao. Smells good, right?”

Mao Mao nodded, shuffling nervously. He kept forcing a smile and then dropping it. “Um… so, Badgerclops, I…” He cleared his throat, then tried to smile again. “Today is your birthday!” He cringed at how awkward it sounded, hiding his face in his hands. He muttered something to himself.

Badgerclops knew better than to say anything right now. When things were embarrassing for Mao Mao, it was best to just let him keep his control of the interaction, however tenuous that control was. He had no idea what Mao Mao was up to, though.

Mao Mao raised a finger, signaling Badgerclops to wait. He covered his eyes with his other hand, silently mouthing a sentence over and over. Finally, he nodded and looked at Badgerclops again. “Badgerclops, I got you a birthday present. Happy birthday!” He handed Badgerclops a meticulously-wrapped box.

Badgerclops held the gift in his hand, stunned. Mao Mao had  _ never _ given him a present before. He’d always assumed that it was just too personal for him. Mao Mao was bad at expressing his feelings, and he didn’t really pay enough attention to other people to remember what kinds of gifts they might like. So this was a bit of a shock.

He turned the package over, feeling the weight. It wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t light either. It felt kind of like a book, but it was too… airy? Badgerclops was baffled. The wrapping was, of course, pristine. Striped white and gold paper creased at perfect ninety-degree angles enrobed the whole box. A carefully tied ribbon adorned the top with a bow. There was a handwritten card slipped underneath it. “Wow, Mao Mao! Did you do this?”

Mao Mao nodded, blushing a little.

“Can I open it after dinner? I want to have time to enjoy it!”

Mao Mao went back to looking uncomfortable again. He had probably figured that Badgerclops would open it as soon as he got it. Badgerclops felt a little bad for setting him off his plan like that, but he wanted to really savor the gift.

He gently placed the package down on the kitchen table and stepped towards Mao Mao. He grinned. “Thank you very much for the birthday present, Mao Mao! I really appreciate it.” He pulled Mao Mao into a hug, quickly releasing him before the surprise could even wear off. “Can you go get Adorabat and tell her to set the table?”

Mao Mao realized what was going on and nodded, relief washing over him as he left the room to find Adorabat. Badgerclops smiled to himself. It felt good to give Mao Mao an out when he needed one. He couldn’t believe that Mao Mao had actually gotten him a gift. It was obvious how hard he was working to have that conversation the “right” way.

A few minutes later, they were seated around the table enjoying their spaghetti. Badgerclops’s sauce recipe was, of course, delicious. He bashfully accepted their compliments on it. “Thank you both for such a nice birthday!” It was wonderful, sharing this meal together. But in the back of his head, he was racking his brain. What could Mao Mao have possibly gotten him? Why had he decided to finally start giving him gifts? The curiosity was almost painful.

Adorabat and Mao Mao surprised him with a birthday cake from the bakery. It was delicious too. Adorabat insisted on singing happy birthday, and Mao Mao begrudgingly joined in. Badgerclops was smiling and laughing, enjoying every bit of the celebration. Finally, when the plates were cleaned and put away, he turned to the present on the table. He carried it out to the living room and called Mao Mao to join him on the couch.

“Can I open this now?”

“Oh, um, yeah. Of course. Happy birthday!” Mao Mao smiled and blushed, looking away.

Badgerclops slipped the envelope out from under the ribbon and sliced it open with a claw. He slid it away from the card. The front simply said “Happy Birthday!” with a cute illustration of some balloons. He flipped it open. The inside was a mess of scribbled out words. Badgerclops found where the finalized sentiment began. He read it to himself.

_ Badgerclops - You are a good friend. Thank you for sticking with me all this time. I hope you enjoy this gift. _

Badgerclops smiled, already tearing up. Obviously it was stilted and a little rough, but Mao Mao had obviously tried so hard to get this right. He was doing his best to tell Badgerclops that he was appreciated. It was really, really sweet.

He placed the card down and gave Mao Mao another hug. “Thanks, Mao.”

Mao Mao looked away, embarrassed about the sentiment being out in the open now.

Excitedly, Badgerclops began to unwrap the present. He undid the bow and carefully slipped the tape from the paper. His family had always saved the wrapping paper from every occasion, so it was basically instinct to disassemble the wrapping as neatly as possible. 

What remained was an unmarked cardboard box. It was about the length of Badgerclops’s forearm, and a bit more than half as wide. He flipped the box open, and…

He gasped, bringing his hand to his mouth. Inside was a set of shining silvery tubes printed with brilliant colors. Several brushes laid together along one side of the box. Beneath it all was a sheaf of thick, textured paper. Badgerclops couldn’t believe it.

“Mao Mao!!” He struggled to find words. “How… what did you… how did you know?”

Mao Mao was embarrassed, but he smiled. He was enjoying Badgerclops’s surprise and excitement. “Well, I remembered a few weeks ago when you got so frustrated with your watercoloring… You’re a really good artist, so I thought there had to be something wrong with your tools. I went to the art supply store and asked them what might help, and they suggested this.”

Badgerclops pulled out a sheet of the paper, feeling it between his claws. “Mao Mao, this stuff is expensive!” He set it down on the table and giddily examined the colors on the tubes. Even the brushes were obviously high quality. “I mean, thank you! This is really unbelievable! But it’s just a silly hobby…”

“Are you crazy, Badgerclops? You’re an amazing artist! It’s not… silly! You deserve good tools so you can make the things you want!”

Badgerclops couldn’t believe it. He grabbed Mao Mao for a big, deep hug. “Thank you so much, Mao Mao. This is an incredible gift. I’m gonna watercolor so much stuff, dude!” He pulled away and grinned at Mao Mao, who had turned entirely red.

“I’m… glad.” Mao Mao played with his cape nervously. “I wanted to make up for, uh, not giving you anything at all before this.” He chuckled. “Ol’ Blue said I should show my friends that I appreciate them more, and I should practice being a better listener, so… well, you know.”

Badgerclops rubbed at his eye. “You listened to me complain about the watercolors and you remembered just so you could get me a gift?”

Mao Mao nodded.

“Well then consider me appreciated, Mao. This was really, really nice of you. I’m so happy!” He hugged Mao Mao yet again, giddily. This time, Mao Mao hugged back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this idea was just so sweet when it came to me. Mao Mao is totally the sort to not give gifts because he just doesn't know how. It's so nice to see him trying hard for his friends like this.
> 
> Thanks to my boyfriend for helping me figure out what the gift would actually be!


	30. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adorabat explains the concept of Halloween to Badgerclops and Mao Mao, who are very skeptical of the holiday.

"Hallowhat?" Mao Mao asked. _ What a ridiculous word. _

"Halloween!" Adorabat repeated, stressing the last syllable. "Come on Mao Mao, everyone knows what Halloween is!"

Mao Mao turned to Badgerclops. "Have you..?"

Badgerclops shook his head.

"Adorabat, you'll have to explain this 'Halloween' to us."

"Halloween is the best day ever!! All the kids get dressed in cool costumes, then they go from house to house collecting candy! Sometimes the houses are really scary. It's soooo fun!"

"Wait," Mao Mao said. "So you hide your identities…"

"And visit strangers' houses…" Badgerclops continued.

"Where you accept food from them…"

"And they're in costumes too?"

Adorabat nodded gleefully. "Mhm! Sometimes the older kids prank people too."

Mao Mao and Badgerclops exchanged a glance. "Okay," Mao Mao crossed to the calendar and picked up a marker. "Halloween is officially cancelled!" He crossed out October 31st. "Stupid local tradition…" he muttered.

"Yeah man, we gotta shut this thing down. Literally no part of that sounds okay." Badgerclops began to draft a letter announcing the cancellation.

Adorabat was aghast. "What are you saying?! Halloween is the best day of the year!"

"It sounds way too dangerous and unpredictable! We can't have unidentifiable sweetypies running around in masks and causing mischief!"

Adorabat looked nervous now. "No, please, don't cancel Halloween! It's really fun! I promise!"

"Adorabat, I just don't see how-"

Adorabat started to cry. "If the other kids find out I ruined Halloween, they'll all hate me! Please don't do it!" 

Mao Mao felt his chest tighten as his stomach dropped out from under him. He couldn't stand to see Adorabat cry.

"Dude dude dude, it's okay!" Badgerclops said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "We won't cancel Halloween!"

"Really?" She sniffled.

"Yeah!" Mao Mao said. He was desperate to stop her crying. "In fact, we'll celebrate with you!"

She looked cautiously excited. "You promise?"

Mao Mao nodded. He had no idea what he was getting himself into. But if this "Halloween" had been going on for so long, it couldn't be as bad as it sounded, right?

Adorabat was relieved, then thrilled. "Oh! Oh! You guys need costumes!"

"Costumes?" Badgerclops asked.

"Yeah, everyone dresses up on Halloween! If you're going to take me candy collecting, you need to wear something fun too!"

"Hmm…" Mao Mao considered the options. If he could dress up as anything, what would it be? It wasn't a question he'd pondered much before.

"Well, what are you going as?" Badgerclops asked Adorabat. "Maybe that can help me and Mao Mao figure out what to do."

"I'm going as the best hero ever!!" She ran to the bedroom and returned with a small red cape and a cardboard katana.

"Awww, that's so cute!" Badgerclops patted her on the head. She bonked his hand with the prop sword. Suddenly Badgerclops's eyes lit up with an idea. "I wanna be a werewolf!"

Mao Mao laughed. "Aren't you already enormous and hairy? What else is left?"

Badgerclops wiggled his claws. "Paws, a tail, and a tattered red flannel. We can do that, easy."

Adorabat gasped. "Oh! Mao Mao! You can be a vampire!"

"Adorabat?" Badgerclops said. "That is hands down the best idea you've ever had. Can you imagine Mao Mao with little fangs?" Badgerclops put his hand to his head, fake swooning.

Mao Mao blushed. Even though Badgerclops was making it weird, a vampire  _ would _ be a pretty good costume for him. A big dramatic cape, a ruffled shirt… that could be fun. "Okay, okay." He made a placating hand gesture. "I'll do it."

"Yes! Yes! Yes!!" Adorabat shot into the air and flew a loop in excitement. "This will be so much fun!!"

Mao Mao and Badgerclops looked at each other nervously.

\---

Mao Mao poked at the plastic fangs with his tongue. They were ridiculous and not very comfortable, but they’d made Adorabat (and Badgerclops) very happy. It was Halloween now, and they were out trick-or-treating with Adorabat. She’d explained more of the tradition to them, how it was all supposed to work, and Badgerclops had even done some research into the history of it at the library. Their initial panic at the concept of Halloween seemed a little silly now.

They walked down the cobblestone streets of the city, past houses lined with fake spiderwebs and jack-o-lanterns. Adorabat held a plastic bucket half-full with candy. She’d gotten tired of carrying her sword, so Badgerclops held onto it for her. It looked pretty funny clutched between his fuzzy werewolf paws. The atmosphere of the night was fun, Mao Mao had to admit. Kids walked from house to house ringing doorbells and getting candy. Occasional screams followed by laughs came from all around. Clusters of young sweetypies simply stood around, trading candy and playing in their costumes. He could see why Adorabat liked this so much.

“Let’s do this one!” Adorabat flew up to the doorbell of a meticulously-decorated house and pressed it. The doorway was surrounded by an array of skeletons in conversational poses. It opened, revealing Ol’ Blue.

“Woooah! Your costume is SO COOL!”

Blue smiled. He was dressed in a very elaborate pirate costume. His clean white shirt out-ruffled Mao Mao’s by a substantial margin. It was layered beneath a double-breasted navy waistcoat with shining gold trim, pointed cuffs, and a series of polished brass buttons lining either side of the open center. On his head sat a perfectly matching tricorne. A sheathed cutlass dangled from his side. The detail and precision on the costume was stunning.

He didn’t have an eyepatch or a hook hand (which Badgerclops appreciated), but he  _ did _ have a parrot puppet. Two, in fact, one on each hand. He held the left one up towards Adorabat’s candy bucket. “Share?” he squawked, tilting the parrot’s head and opening its mouth.

Adorabat was surprised. “Um… you want some of my candy?”

The parrot nodded. Ol’ Blue winked at Mao Mao as Adorabat rummaged through her bucket. “Here,” she said, holding out a tiny fun-sized candy bar. “These ones are really good.”

The parrot squawked approvingly and grabbed it from her hand. Ol’ Blue reached beyond the doorframe with his other hand. A moment later, the other parrot dropped a full-sized version of the same candy bar back into Adorabat’s bucket.

“WOW!!” Adorabat shouted, delighted. “Thanks Mr. Blue!”

“You did a great job sharing, Adorabat. I like your costume too.” He waved at her as she bounded back towards Mao Mao and Badgerclops, then shut the door again.

“I want a costume like THAT next year!” Adorabat announced gleefully. Mao Mao watched her take her sword back from Badgerclops and realized with surprise that he was grinning. It was nice to see Adorabat so happy. It was fun to see all the costumes. And it was nice just to spend time with Badgerclops and Adorabat away from their sheriff duties. He walked a little closer to Badgerclops as they continued onward. He decided he liked Halloween.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot think of a holiday more horrifying in concept to Mao Mao than Halloween. Even Takesgiving was an obvious grift; Halloween just sounds like self-inflicted chaos.
> 
> Also, Ol' Blue is absolutely a killer tailor and made that costume himself. He's the best.


	31. Mao Mao

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mao Mao finally confesses his love to Badgerclops.

The sun hung low over Pure Heart Valley, soaking the sky in sweet orange hues. The air was soft, a perfect temperature for sitting outside. The occasional chirp of a cricket punctuated the evening quiet. Things were about as picturesque as they could possibly get.

Mao Mao observed it all from the cantilevered dojo beside their comfortable HQ. He was seated in the middle of the floor, having just finished training for the day. Badgerclops sat behind him, gently massaging his back. Things were peaceful right now. He couldn't believe he was actually  _ enjoying _ the stillness; he'd always craved action over reflection. But then again, a lot had changed since he and Badgerclops had arrived here.

Badgerclops pressed his thumb into Mao Mao's back. He worked at the muscles while they were still loose from Mao Mao’s exercises. This had become a bit of a ritual over time. It was a way to remind Mao Mao to take breaks and rest his body, and it let him be a part of Mao Mao’s daily training. He looked out over the scenery, the dusty sunset light shimmering in his eye. "It's a nice evening, huh?"

"Yeah…" Mao Mao traced the ridge of silhouetted mountains fading into the dusk with his eyes. He felt a certain pressure in his chest. It was difficult to form words because of the ones he was trying so hard not to say. "Thank you for helping me with my back again, Badgerclops. You're… an excellent friend."

Badgerclops giggled. "Hehe, it's no problem, Mao! Sometimes it's nice to just… hang out, y'know?" He began to softly hum a tune that Mao Mao had come to know well. He hummed it often when they did things like this.

Mao Mao sighed. The massage felt so good. It was all so good. But his heart ached desperately. He wanted to tell Badgerclops what he'd slowly come to realize since they'd come to Pure Heart Valley. It was almost painful to hold it back. He wanted to tell Badgerclops everything, but he squeezed the feelings down as far as they would go instead. No matter how much he wanted to speak up, he couldn't.

He changed the subject instead. "How’s your arm?”

Badgerclops smirked. “Flesh or robot?”

“Robot.”

He flexed it tentatively. “It could use some cleaning, I guess. Why?”

“Well, you know, you’re always doing nice stuff for me, I just thought… I’d like to do something for you. I’m… I care about you.”

Mao Mao’s heart was screaming at him.  _ You deserve love! Talk about your feelings! _ They were Ol' Blue's words, though he'd said them much more calmly.  _ Open yourself up! Let him in! You can be happy! _

His stomach twisted in knots. He wanted to say it so badly. He wanted to tell Badgerclops how he felt, and it was terrifying. Badgerclops might hate him, or run away and never come back, or — even worse — might stay but turn distant. Mao Mao didn't want to lose the best friendship he'd ever had. He wanted Badgerclops to stay with him like this. But he couldn't stand the pain of hiding it any longer! His heart felt like it was going to explode from the conflict.

Badgerclops removed his hands from Mao Mao’s back. There was a hint of reluctance in the motion. “I care about you too, Mao Mao…” The weight and tension in the silence tore at Mao Mao’s resolve. Badgerclops stood. “Let’s head inside.”

“Wait.”

Badgerclops blinked, surprised.

Mao Mao rose and turned to face him. Badgerclops was awash in the fading golden light, the wispy edges of his fur catching the sun like a glowing aura. Mao Mao’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at Badgerclops’s shape. He was so big. His powerful arms and massive claws betrayed his incredible strength, but gentle kindness radiated from his face. That was the face Mao Mao had fallen in love with. Those were the arms he wanted to hold him.

“Badgerclops, I...”

He’d shared so much with Badgerclops over the years. He was the first person Mao Mao had ever opened up to about his childhood. He was the one who helped him get over Bao Bao. He gave Mao Mao more second chances than anyone deserved. There was no one in the world Mao Mao had ever felt closer to, and he knew that he had to tell him how he felt. Even if it meant risking everything.

_ It’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to want to be loved. It’s okay to talk about your feelings. _ He repeated it to himself.  _ Everyone has needs, even heroes. Do what’s best for yourself, not your image. _

“You’re the most important person in my life, a-and I’m…” He clenched his fists. He was trying so hard to find the words. He wanted to tell him. He  _ had _ to. “You mean a lot to me, and I want to stay together…”

Badgerclops furrowed his brow. He was clearly not sure what was happening.

_ Just say it! Say it say it say it!!!  _ Mao Mao’s heart shrieked at him. He was starting to panic. This was the moment. He couldn’t stop now.

“I don’t want to just be friends! I… I love you!” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could even process them.

Suddenly the world seemed deathly quiet. If the crickets were still chirping, Mao Mao couldn’t hear them. A massive weight lifted off his chest, but at the same time he felt like he might be sick. Every ounce of his attention was focused on Badgerclops, waiting for a response.

First was shock, of course. Badgerclops’s mouth opened slightly, along with his eye. He looked unwaveringly at Mao Mao. A tense moment passed; it felt like an hour to Mao Mao. He was barely breathing.

“Mao Mao…” His voice was so soft. So tender. Mao Mao waited with every hair on his body raised. He wanted love. He wanted it so badly. He wanted Badgerclops to say something.

Badgerclops shuffled awkwardly. “Do you… really feel that way about me?”

Mao Mao nodded slowly as his heart turned into a stone. This was going to be a rejection. He could feel it. A massive lump formed in his throat.

Then without warning, Badgerclops’s arms were around him, and he was swept off his feet and into a hug. “I love you too!” Badgerclops yelled, crushing him against his huge body. Mao Mao couldn’t believe it. This was too good to be true. Badgerclops was already crying, squeezing the remaining air from Mao Mao’s lungs as he hugged even harder.

Mao Mao pushed himself away slightly and gasped in a breath. Badgerclops realized that he’d gotten a little too zealous and gently set Mao Mao down on the ground. 

It took a moment for Mao Mao to catch his breath. He looked up and saw that Badgerclops was bright red with blush, and grinning from ear to ear. Then he realized that he was too. 

“Sorry, I…” Badgerclops started to laugh, and Mao Mao joined him. They were both still giddy from what had just occurred. Badgerclops thumped back down on the ground, throwing his arms behind him for support and tilting his head back as the nervous excitement poured out of him. Mao Mao sat down again too, facing him. 

As soon as they could speak again, Mao Mao began interrogating him. “Why’d you ask me if I really meant what I said?? I thought you were about to turn me down!” He leaned back on his arms, breathing heavily to recover from the laughter.

Badgerclops looked embarrassed. “Dude, I’ve been in love with you since like, day three of traveling together. I was totally convinced you didn’t feel the same way about me. I mean, it’s been  _ years, _ Mao! It just seemed like, way too good to be real, y’know?”

Mao Mao’s mouth dropped open. “You’ve been holding it in for YEARS?! I didn’t even have feelings until like six months ago and already I felt like I was going to burst!”

Badgerclops scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. “I mean, I didn’t really hide it. I was literally just giving you a massage and talking about how nice it is to spend time together. I just didn’t want to say anything because I thought if I did, you’d… not like me anymore.”

“Well, you’re never getting rid of me now.”

Badgerclops laughed. Mao Mao loved the sound of that laugh more than anything in the world. 

“So, what do we do now?” Mao Mao asked. It wasn’t a rhetorical question; the world seemed more full of possibilities than it ever had before.

“Well,” Badgerclops said, scooting closer, “I’d really like to, uh… hold you a little more.”

Mao Mao’s chest flooded with nervous excitement. “I would enjoy that.”

Badgerclops wrapped him in a cuddly embrace, enrobing his body in comforting warmth. Mao Mao grabbed back, trying to push his body as close to Badgerclops’s as it would go. They laid back and watched the last of the light disappear from the sky, their arms and legs gleefully tangled together. And as the valley below them blazed with lighted windows, they quietly exchanged a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL for sticking with me through a full month of writing, wow!! This was an unbelievable experience and I made some great things that I never would have wrote without these prompts. I want to thank my boyfriend for all of his help both in this specific fic as well as pretty much all of them for this entire month. If you're somehow still craving more of my writing, I have two other Mao Mao fics posted here. And after a little well-deserved break, I'll get back to working on some more. 
> 
> This chapter was sort of the culmination of everything I've written this month. It seemed really fitting to end on them finally telling each other how they feel. I wanted the last piece to be something really sweet and full of hope for the future. I really hope you all enjoyed this ending, and the whole month of fics!
> 
> Some fun statistics and facts about this challenge:  
The name "Mao Mao" is written in this fic 755 times. Additionally, singular "Mao" appears 64 times.  
The google doc in which I wrote everything is 100 pages long.  
I wrote an average of 1,286 words per day this month (using the word count of the doc rather than the posted fic).  
The three longest fics were Chapter 20 (the D&D one), Chapter 7 (the one where Mao Mao takes Adorabat to a cool foreign city), and Chapter 24 (the one where they try to solve a mystery)


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